


Desperate Times, Desperate Measures

by AllDaveKat, Apiaristic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Anal Sex, Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Friends With Benefits, Internalized Homophobia, Jealousy, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Roleplay Logs, Runaway Dave Strider, Semi-Public Sex, Size Difference, underground fighting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:35:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22947916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllDaveKat/pseuds/AllDaveKat, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apiaristic/pseuds/Apiaristic
Summary: Dave runs away from home and enters an illegal underground wrestling match.Karkat wipes the floor with his ass, but takes pity on him afterward.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Sollux Captor/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 20
Kudos: 120





	1. The Great Lettuce Theft

**Author's Note:**

> **Currently on indefinite hiatus.**

It’s so loud. Holy shit, it’s so loud.

When Dave Strider ducks into the crowd at the back of an abandoned Walmart, he truly realises how loud it is. There's music coming from everywhere. It’s ridiculously bright with the floodlights that have been installed around the parking lot.

It’s the middle of nowhere. The last stop on the bus' rounds.

A Walmart. Who'd have thought so much underground shit went down in a Walmart parking lot?

Well--literally anyone, but that’s not the point.

Someone to his left offers him white powder. To his right, a busy lady presses her tits to his shoulder, and he grimaces and shrivels away, wiping his shoulder with his bandaged hand.

Don't get the wrong idea. His hand isn't injured. And BOTH his hands are wrapped, thank you, so it’s not like he has some mad cramp from masturbating that needs medical tape and bandages.

The real wound is on his heart, where it aches to have left his Bro.

Jokes. Feelings are for pussies. Who's a pussy? Not this fuckin' guy. This fuckin' guy is about to make mad cash beating up some incel.

Shades tucked away in his duffle bag inside the brick locker room--which is really just the loading dock of the Walmart that was broken into months ago--and the front of his blond hair tied back in a messy man-bun to keep it out of his striking red eyes, Dave makes towards the centre of the mosh pit, where a chalk square has been drawn.

Everyone stays out of the chalk square. There are some yoga mats higgelty-piggelty laid out over the concrete, which Dave silently appreciates, and there's some cheering, a hand on his shoulder, which makes him jump, and some guy with really messy hair guiding him into the square.

_"WE'VE GOT WILD MOTHERFUCKIN' SHIT PLANNED TONIGHT, FOLKS! LEMME ASK YOU, ARE YOU READY?"_

Dave has no idea what's going on. Hands are on him, patting his face, giving him water, he thinks he hears someone make a bet.

The man with the wild hair crouches to his height and gives him what looks like a used mouthguard. Dave recoils, but takes it anyway.

He doesn't put it in his mouth.

"Good luck, kid. If you win, I'll find you. Ok?"

Dave nods, swallowing, and the man, who Dave now notices has a microphone, turns to stand back up.

_"OUR CURRENT CHAMPION AND MAN OF THE RING WILL BE GOING TONIGHT, UP AGAINST-" He pauses, looks to Dave._

Dave pulls a face.

"UH- SOME FRAT TWINK!"

The crowd laughs. Dave's cheeks go red, and he mutters something about _not_ being a fucking twink.

_"SO PLEASE, EVERYBODY WELCOME THE KNIGHT, OF BLOOD, THE MAN OF BEASTS, THE SON OF THE SIGNLESS, HE WHO MUST NOT BE TRIFLED WITH!"_

Dave hops foot to foot nervously. As he looks around, he sees a mix of people, both human and non alike. Some trolls are smoking things from humans, humans smoking things from trolls. It gives Dave a sort of fuzzy feeling, actually, knowing that here, nobody gives a shit about your past or your history or _what_ you are.

Then he stops, freezes.

He really hopes he's up against another _human_. He really needs this money.

-

The energy of the crowd outside the locker room is infectious. Karkat can’t help but feel excited as he gets ready for tonight’s fight, letting the chatter and whooping shouts hype him up. No matter how many years he’s done this, the adrenaline of a fight night never gets old.

He shoves his day clothes into a locker and changes into his usual uniform: skin tight pants that don’t restrict his mobility and a loose tank top with his sign stenciled on it. He heads out into the crowded parking lot, ignoring the cheers and boos aimed at him as he pushes his way to the front of the chalk ring.

Karkat’s been underground wrestling for years now, and he’s built himself a decent reputation as a strong wrestler who fights clean and takes no shits.

He also has a good number of enemies, people who think he shouldn’t be allowed to fight because of his mutant status. Unfortunately for those people, there are no official rules in underground that would allow a ref to kick him out.

As long as he shows up, he’s allowed to fight.

He sometimes wishes he could have made it as a legitimate athlete, despite knowing that his blood makes that impossible. He knows there’s no point wishing for something that can’t happen, though, so most of the time he puts it out of his mind.

He looks around the crowd, wondering who he’ll be fighting tonight. He sees a few familiar faces, a lot of new ones as well.

Gamzee starts up with his usual dramatic announcer bullshit, and Karkat’s eyes widen in surprise when the highblood drags a skinny blond kid into the ring.

On second thought, Karkat guesses the guy’s probably only a few years younger than him, but he’s just so fucking *shrimpy*. Karkat’s at least a full foot and a half taller than him, and the kid’s entire torso is probably about as wide as Karkat’s bicep.

Gamzee introduces the new kid as “some frat twink” and Karkat snorts a laugh. Seems fucking accurate, at least so far. He watches in amusement as the kid turns red and mumbles something.

Then Gamzee announces Karkat, and he steps into the ring. His feet planted steady on the mat, he nods to the kid he’s about to fight. He stops in shock for a moment when the kid’s eyes meet his. They’re a piercing red color, same as Karkat’s. He’s… never met anyone else with eyes like that. Fuck. He shakes it off, whatever, he doesn’t know this kid, he’s just gonna kick his ass and clean up tonight like always.

He stands in the middle of the ring, facing down the kid, who looks exceedingly fucking nervous. Is he… wearing bandages on his hands? Did he just google “how to do underground fighting” on the internet on his way here, what the fuck? Karkat doesn’t wear gloves or anything, but he knows humans typically do. He’s never seen someone wear bandages into the ring, except maybe in fucking movies.

He doesn’t bother saying anything to him, just waits for Gamzee to honk his stupid horn to announce the start of the match.

The first round doesn’t last long at all.

The kid is pretty fast, and he dodges a few of Karkat’s punches, but after a couple minutes Karkat’s got him cornered and gets a good solid hit in on his chest. He falls on his ass, gets up quickly, panting. Karkat hits him again, in the jaw this time, knocking him down again. The kid jumps up, ducks around him. Karkat grabs him by the shoulder and hits him in the head again, and the kid falls to the floor. Karkat pins him before he can get up for a third time, the slippery fuck.

The second match is even shorter, Karkat pinning the kid within two minutes of the starting honk.

The crowd is going nuts, money exchanging hands even before Gamzee finishes the final count and lifts Karkat’s wrist to signal his victory.

Karkat leaves the ring without further ceremony, leaving the kid still lying on the mat. He knows Gamzee’s good for the money, he’ll get it deposited in his bank account tomorrow like always. There’s no shower here so he just wipes his sweat off with his towel and changes back into his regular clothes.

As he’s getting dressed, the kid he fought stumbles in and starts changing as well. Karkat ignores him to the best of his ability.

At least, he tries to for a couple minutes, until he hears a loud _thump_. He turns around, startled, and sees the guy slumped onto the floor, passed out cold.

God fucking dammit. This is _not_ Karkat’s problem, he tells himself. He looks at the door, his duffel bag in hand, beyond ready to go home for the night, then looks back at the kid.

Okay. He’ll just check on him real quick, look in his phone so he can call someone to pick him up here.

He looks through the kid’s duffel and pockets to see if he can find a wallet, an ID, a phone, any kind of name or contact information. Nothing. All he has in his bag are his dirty clothes and a pair of sunglasses.

Fuck.

Five minutes later, he’s driving home with the kid--still passed out, by the way--in his front seat, cursing himself with the most creative insults he can think of.

He carries him up the stairs to his fifth floor apartment, flipping off the permanently-broken elevator as he passes it, and deposits the kid on his couch. He hangs around for a few minutes in the living room, not sure what to do, then decides to go take a shower. He leaves a note on the coffee table in case the guy wakes up before he comes back.

I DIDN’T KIDNAP YOU, OKAY, YOU JUST PASSED OUT LIKE AN IDIOT AT AN UNDERGROUND FIGHT. I’M IN THE SHOWER, I’LL BE BACK OUT IN A FEW MINUTES. GO HOME OR STAY, I DON’T GIVE A FUCK, JUST DON’T FREAK OUT AND REPORT ME TO THE COPS.

-

All Dave can think about now is Bro.

As he staggers to the changing room, tears sting his eyes and all he can think to himself is about how glad he is that Bro wasn't there to see that pitiful display.

He had been fast, sure, but that hadn't been enough by a long shot. That _monster_ had absolutely _wiped the floor_ with his ass.

But fuck.

 _Fuck!_ It had been hot.

When Dave had gotten there and stood in the ring, waiting to be introduced to his opponent, he'd unashamedly let his eyes wander the crowd--

And god-fucking-damn, there had been some attractive me--  
People, there. People. Not men. Haha, Dave wasn't gay, gay was for-- Gay people. Yeah. Not him! He was so far from gay you could freeze a popsicle in the cold space between them.

Haha, yep.

But _man_ , Dave would _not_ have complained if he'd been bent over and railed right there in the middle of the fucking ring.

Which was also, in a way, what had happened. His opponent—“Karkat,” or so he had heard being yelled— had smacked, bent, pulled, pinned, held, grabbed, and _devastated_ him so thoroughly he was sure he understood now what it felt like to be truly, a twink.

He'd be a liar if he'd said he hadn't almost popped a boner when he'd heard that _beast’s_ ragged breath in his ear, his warm, muscular body pressed against him….

Shit, sure, he'd lost the battle, but he was gonna win the war of being up close and personal with hot guys.  
Enough ~~gay~~ monologuing, Strider.

When he wakes up sprawled over someone's couch, his first thought is, _“Oh. Fuck. I'm home.”_

Though, as he comes to, it becomes obvious that he’s somewhere else.

Clean carpet, tv, a coffee table. A spacious room. A couch that isn’t stained or covered in puppets.

If Dave hadn't just run away from home, he might have been worried. He blinks himself to wakefulness and sits up, slowly, and then moans with unabashed discomfort and falls to lay back down.

 _Everything_ hurts. He feels like he's just taken a beatdown— Or at least half of one, since he’s never woken up this fast from one of his brother’s… lessons.

His jaw aches. His neck hurts. His shoulders, his legs, his--

"Oooouufffh…"

Dave groans, sitting up again, slower this time. He glances around, reaching for the note once his red hues spot it, simultaneously reaching to adjust his shades--

His shades! Fuck, fuckin' penis--

Oh.

Dave laughs weakly to himself as he drags his mostly-empty duffle to himself and retrieves his shades, sliding them onto his face with a careful sigh.

Normalcy.

He reads the note and almost laughs. He'd be a liar if he said he'd thought for a second that maybe, by some miracle, Bro had found him and left a note, because he's just _like that_ ,

But to his relief, it's not.

He gets to his feet. The guys taking a shower, right?

Dave'll just take his shit and leave.

He hops into action. He knows he _shouldn't_ , but he's desperate and has no idea who brought him here. Was it that creepy stoner? The busy lady?

He doesn't know. Barely cares.

Duffel bag in hand, Dave begins stuffing whatever looks like it'll make money into his bag, and then empties it onto the floor. Idiot. He needs food first.

He makes for the fridge. He takes every bottle of water he can find, and then the juice, and then the alcohol, and then the faygo, in that order. He stuffs a whole lettuce into his bag, coz a kid's gotta stay healthy, and then starts grabbing microwave meals, ham, cheese, bread, like a little rat.

Desperate times. He should probably get the hell out of dodge before Bro makes it to town.

Once his bag is stuffed with food, he stares around the kitchen. He grabs whoever’s wallet off the counter, rifles through it uncaringly, and takes whatever cash, the card, and the little dangly cancer sign that hangs from the zipper, because he wants it.

He's about to reach for the car keys, bag hefted onto his shoulder, when he hears and sees the bathroom door open down the hallway. His stomach drops, and he freezes like a deer in the headlights, hand hovering over the keys on the bench.

_Fuck._

-

Karkat takes his time in the shower, rinsing off the sweat and grime that comes from rolling around on a dirty mat in an abandoned parking lot.

It’s only as he’s getting out of the shower that he realizes he doesn’t fucking know this kid, and he just left him in his house with his _wallet_ on the countertop. What the fuck is _wrong_ with him?? He doesn’t usually make mistakes like this, but for some reason this stupid kid has him with his guard down.

He dries off quickly and wraps a towel around his waist, not wanting to spend the time it would take to get dressed.

Opening the door, he steps out into the hallway and his jaw drops as he sees the fucking kid reaching for his car keys on the countertop. The look of guilt on his face is _very_ fucking apparent. God fucking dammit, what else was he gonna try to steal??

“Hey!” he yells, running down the hallway toward him. “What the fuck are you doing, asshole?”’

Reaching the kid, he grabs him by his scrawny arm and holds onto him, pulling his backpack away and rifling through it.

“Are you… are you stealing my fucking _lettuce?_ ” he asks incredulously.

He finds his credit card and cash in there too, of fucking course, as well as some more random food items from his kitchen. What the actual fuck.

Karkat curses himself for being dumb enough to leave this kid alone in his goddamn apartment. Now what’s he supposed to do with him? Report him to the cops? But then he’ll have to explain he met the kid in an underground fight tournament, and, no. He doesn’t trust cops anyway.

He leans over the guy, attempting to use his size to intimidate him. “Who the fuck are you, and why are you stealing my shit?”

-

Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit—

As it hits him that _the hot guy_ from the tournament that cleaned up is the one who owns all this shit and basically _saved_ him, all of the colour drains from Dave's face. He holds his hands up in a gesture of mock innocence, and makes a noise embarrassingly close to a squeak when he's grabbed.

Shut your fucking mouth, Strider, god.

Fuck. This guy is _huge_! He towers over Dave, his hand--nay, _paw_ \--easily wrapping around his scrawny upper arm, and Dave has never wanted someone to ~~rail him in a kitchen~~ let him go more in his entire life.

Karkat => Intimidate Dave.

Dave => Be intimidated.

The little blond shrinks away from Karkat as soon as the man rounds on him, laughing nervously and sweating bullets at the questions thrown his way. He tries not to look as intimidated as he feels, but it's pretty hard when you have a guy who is built like a house and stands like the foundations towering over you.

"Look, I'm _super_ sorry, man, I had no idea it was _you_ I'd be robbin'-- Not that I'd be happy robbin' _anyone_ , it's just--, uh, you're very--"

Dave's eyes roam Karkat's frame behind his shades. Up, down. "You."

He shuffles on his feet and clears his throat.

"Would you believe me if I said that my name is Inigo Montoya, and my father has been killed--"

The look on Karkat's face alone cuts him off.

"No? Um, what about, I'm the sole leader of a gang of little street orphans, and since I lost that tournament, you get cash, and therefore _I'm_ entitled to your lettuce and all other personal belongings-- But mostly your lettuce--"

Smooth, dude. Really smooth.

It's better than using his last resort-- Which is to burst into tears and spill his story from a to b,

So he does the next best thing, and gives a frail sigh.

"Look, man. I-- Okay. I'm not running a gang of orphans, and my name is a lot less cooler than Inigo Montoya. It's Dave, and that tournament was the only way I make it through the week, and I got my ass handed to me in a little tupperware container. I was just gonna take your shit and leave, but oopsie doopsie, you caught me, and now you're gonna kick me out anyway with nothin', so I'm feelin' pretty stupid right now."

-

Karkat doesn’t speak, he just waits until the kid--Dave, supposedly--finally stops rambling. He absolutely does not believe a word this guy is saying. Until the very end--he definitely believes the guy feels pretty fucking stupid right now.

Still holding onto his arm, he looks at him incredulously.

“Yeah, no shit, you should be feeling stupid right now! You… you wake up in the house of someone you don’t even know, and then you try to rob them and get fucking _caught_?? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

He shoves his hand through his wet hair, thinking out loud. “What am I supposed to do with you now? Fucking shit, I should not have fucking brought you here.”

Despite himself, despite the fact that he brought this guy into his house out of the kindness of his heart, and he fucking tried to rob him!! He feels… a tiny bit guilty?

Like, what if he actually is telling the truth, and he’s gonna be out on the street with no food or money if Karkat kicks him out? Fuck. He _did_ find him without a wallet or phone or… anything.

God fucking dammit.

“Where were you planning to go, with my lettuce and thirty-seven dollars and change? Do you have a place to stay?” he asks, partly out of genuine concern and partly… just to see what the guy will say. If he’s gonna keep bullshitting him.

-

“I--“ Dave opens his mouth and then shuts it again, Karkat’s question hitting him in a wave.

What _would_ he do with thirty-seven dollars and a lettuce? Going home isn’t an option, since Bro would probably kill him as soon as he walked in the door, that is, assuming he is still home and hasn’t started looking for him.

“I dunno, uh... probably buy a sleeping bag and find some bridge to crouch under? I can’t exactly go back where I came from, but I should be able to manage a while on muesli and a lettuce, and I guess since fighting didn’t go so well, I’ll just wait till I run out of stuff and then either drink myself to death on Faygo or crawl back home, where I’ll inevitably die anyway.”  
He tries to make a joke. He even manages a weak, dry laugh, but it’s not very funny.

He hangs his head and tries to look apologetic, and tugs on his arm in a silent question as to whether he can have his limb back or not. It's starting to feel a lot like a Bro-grab now.

Maybe he should have paid more attention to Bro’s lessons. Maybe then he would have won the fight. Fuck!

“Look, I- I’m _really_ sorry I tried to rob you. But my other option is to lie down in a street and hope that someone maybe throws a lettuce at me, so I’m strong enough to try and street fight one more time and win, but I thought I’d try the riskier, but more profitable option.”

He lifts his head to meet Karkat’s eyes through his shades. “I’ll get out of your hair now, If I can have my bag back.”

-

Karkat lets go of Dave’s arm, not realizing he’d been holding it so tightly.

Ugh, Jesus Christ. No. No, he’s not letting himself feel bad for this fucking kid who just tried to rob him!

…

Who is he fucking kidding, of course he feels bad for him.

Karkat knows what it’s like to be in a bad situation like that. He’s certainly not well-off himself even now, although he’s at least able to afford his half of the rent and buy groceries most of the time. He’s been worse off before, though, back before he started fighting, when he was having trouble even landing a job interview at a fucking fast food restaurant because of his mutant status.

That’s how he ended up getting into underground wrestling in the first place, because a) they don’t do background checks and b) ...yeah, no, that’s pretty much the only reason. Plus he had Gamzee as a connection already, which made it easy to get booked for his first few fights, and, eh. He’s good at it, so he just… keeps doing it.

He looks at the scrawny kid in front of him, curses, sighs deeply, and says something he knows--he _already knows_ \--he’s going to regret.

“Alright. Listen. This is just for one day!! Okay? This is not a permanent invitation to live here, by any fucking means! But… why don’t you stay here tonight. You can crash on my couch.”

He hands him back his bag, and starts putting his food back in the fridge, watching to see what Dave will do.

-

Woah, wait-- Did this guy just--  
Invite Dave to stay?

“Really?”

Immediately, Dave’s face lights up. He can’t believe his luck. He’s been sleeping on the street for weeks, alone, trying to get here, and he’s at the end of his rope, literally stooping to _stealing_ \-- and now he’s being offered a couch for the night?

_Inside?_

He wants to cry. Maybe he is crying.

Just in case, he hurriedly wipes his eyes, pushing his shades up, and clears his throat, leaning back on the bench that they’re standing by, folding his arms and trying not to look as excited as he is, even though the corner of his mouth twitches up.

A night, inside, without Bro, without having to worry about his safety. A whole night!

His heart hammers in his chest. Excitement?  
Maybe.

“I mean, Sure, I think I can push aside my hotel reservation to stay here,” he says, trying to lighten the mood as he folds his arms across his chest, and he watches Karkat start to put things away, watching his shirtless form… His stomach growls loudly, surprising him, and Dave tears his eyes from Karkat’s fucking gorgeous bod to eye the lettuce hungrily.

It's just lettuce, sure, but _god_ , Dave hasn’t eaten anything fresh in... well... ever? Bro never fed him anything so good as anything _fresh_.

-

Fuck, Karkat didn’t mean to make the kid cry. He looks happy, though, so he guesses it’s not a bad crying?

He snorts at Dave’s joke. “Sounds good. Uh. Make yourself at home, I guess. And if I catch you stealing any more of my shit, you’re out on your ass faster than you can say ‘no, Karkat, please don’t throw me out on my ass,’ you hear?” He tries to look a bit threatening.

He really can’t afford to have this guy steal their TV or something. At least his roommate Sollux has like three locks on his bedroom door so he doesn’t have to worry about any of his fancy tech getting jacked.

Dave’s stomach rumbles loudly and Karkat sees him eyeing the lettuce.

“I was about to go to bed, but you seem hungry. Do you want me to make a salad?” he asks. Not exactly the most filling food, but… he can put some leftover chicken and cheese on it, that’s not a bad meal.

-

Dave cracks a smile when Karkat snorts. It's such a.... nice? Sound, compared to the yelling and shouting or complete silence he’s always heard from Bro. It's a very--

Domestic? Noise.

Fuck. Shit. Stop thinking about the noises. The fuck, Dave?

“I promise on my desire to not be thrown out on my ass that I won’t take any more of your stuff.” Dave says, looking around curiously. The hallway where he saw Karkat emerge from the bathroom has two doors opposite each other, and another door at the end, which he assumes are bedrooms and a laundry, or something.

It's so dissimilar from home that it's comforting.

He glances to the fridge door. There’s a shopping list, a little cactus magnet, with a note attached, that reads:

KK- Piicked up a job in ‘hiio. Wiill be away for a whiile. Don’t go iin my room or touch any of my 2hiit. I have an alarm on my door. Ii’ll know. Wiill be back iin maybe a week? Could be two. Don’t paiil two much wiithout me.

\- 2ollux

Dave has no idea what pail means, or why this guy writes with double i’s and 2’s instead of S’s. But then, every troll he’s met has been fuckin’ weird, so he assumes that whoever this “2ollux” is, he’s a roommate. Or a boyfriend?

Dave’s stomach sinks. Why? He doesn’t know. Not like he’s interested in Karkat or anything, that’d be absurd, they just met.

When Karkat mentions food, Dave immediately turns to him. His stomach growls as well in reply, but he shifts on his heels and twists his fingers as if anxiously trying to find something to do with his hands. Why is this guy being so nice? If Dave had tried to rob Bro, he’d have been beaten within an inch of his life. Hell, the last time he tried to leave-- Well. This time, he left without anything but his clothes and a duffle bag, so.

This guy hasn’t hit him once. Sure, he grabbed his arm, but that was _nothing_.

Dave wonders for a moment if he’s being had. If Karkat is being nice only to turn around and smack him later. He shifts uncomfortably, takes a half-step away from Karkat, just in case he _does_ decide to suddenly turn on him.

Dammit, Dave. Now he’ll think you’re rude, or that you think he smells. Can’t you do anything right?

“I don’t wanna intrude on your sleep schedule, so don’t like, go out of your way or anythin’. If you don’t mind me like, stealin’ an egg or, y’know, a lettuce, I’ll just eat that, on its own, no extra salad-y salad stuff required.” Interrupting his thoughts with words, Dave looks down at his feet sheepishly, embarrassed, a little, that he’s asking for someone to make him food, shuffles, and then peers back up at Karkat with his best over-the-shades puppy-eyes.

“But a whole salad would be fuckin’ heaven.”

-

“Alright, but don’t get used to it, you won’t be getting fucking room service here.” Karkat grumbles. “Hang on, let me go get fucking dressed first. Wait here and don’t touch anything.”

He walks into his room and shuts the door, changing out of his towel into sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. He takes a moment to check his phone.

There’s a couple messages from Sollux.

TA: hey kk.

TA: hope you won your fiight toniight, becau2e gue22 what, our 2tupiid fuckiing rent ii2 gettiing raii2ed next month.

TA: when ii get back i gue22 we better talk about fiinding a thiird roommate? 2omeone who doe2n’t giive a 2hiit iif they have to 2leep iin the liiviing room.

God fucking dammit. He was barely making rent as it is… maybe he can ask Gamzee if he can double up on fights a couple nights a week. It’s not great for his body, but then again, fighting in general isn’t, so.

Shoving his phone in his pocket, he heads back to the kitchen.

He pulls out a bowl and starts chopping up lettuce and chicken, mixes in some ranch dressing, and sprinkles a bit of cheese on the top.

He pushes the salad across the kitchen table to Dave, handing him a fork wordlessly.

“I’m gonna head to bed, but, water glasses are in here, feel free to use the bathroom as long as you don’t make a mess. You can borrow a towel if you want a shower, I’ll leave you one on the countertop. You good?”

He stands up and waits a moment in case Dave needs anything else.

-

Dave is barely listening as Karkat explains where the glasses and the towels and whatever else is, mostly because he's too busy devouring the salad he laid out.

Its like fucking nothing he's eaten before.

It tastes _fresh_ , not like the stale chips and warm juice he managed to scrounge up.

He calls a muffled, “G'nigh'!” To Karkat through a mouthful of salad as the troll heads to bed, and then proceeds to take the longest.

Shower.

Ever.

Bro was always going on about heat and water and managing with the bare minimum, but now?

He lets the water wash over him for at least an hour before he washes and rinses his hair and steps out.

He's startled by the skeleton that stares back at him, and it's a moment before he realises that it's himself and not a poltergeist.

His eyes are sunken a little, dark circles ringing the beneath of his red hues. His lip is bruising, and he assumes it's because of the hits he took in the ring, but it must have split a little, because it's bleeding again. He licks the blood off.

Mm. Metallic.

He takes a moment to look himself over after he's gotten his boxers on. Scars cut jagged criss-crosses across his torso, back, and shoulders. A shitty patch-up of a wound looks starkly brown and- gross, against his now-clean skin, and as he pulls the bandages away, he grimaces.

In a slash over his heart is a shallow wound. It was deeper, but it's healed, somewhat.

He digs around in the cupboards. He finds some makeshift first-aid things, and scrubs the wound clean, which brings stinging tears to his eyes, washes it as best he can, and wraps himself with the bandage he found. Luckily, it doesn't seem to be _bleeding_ anymore, so it'll suffice.

For now. Maybe he'll ask Karkat where his actual first-aid kit is.

Tomorrow.

He pulls his old shirt on over his head and steps from the bathroom, feeling like a new man. The light that was coming from under Karkat's door is gone from when Dave saw it before he showered, so Dave assumes he's asleep.

There's a blanket laid out over the couch, and it takes Dave about three seconds before he's all tucked in, and less than that before he's passing out, his aching muscles glad for the relief.

He's running.

He doesn't know where he's running to, but he's running. He has his sword in his hand, but its broken, and he can hear him. Dave can hear him, walking after him, slowly, carefully, like a cat stalking its prey. He doesn't have to run. He never has to run, because Dave is never fast enough anyway. Dave'll get tired, fall back, and _he'll_ get him.

_"Where are you going?"_

_He_ whispers.

Dave kicks his pace into overdrive. Forces himself to run faster. He's crying, and his tears burn tracks down his cheeks as he heaves.

Everything is red. Everything is on _fire._

He screams when pain shoots up his leg, and he's dropped to his knees, a katana neatly lodged in his calf.

Dave twists to pull it out, sobs. Another sword catches his arm and pins him down.

He screams.

_"I'm going to find you, Dave."_

He can't breathe. The fire is suffocating, he, is suffocating, looming over him, all thumbs-down and pointed shades.

There's another knife. This one is at his back, and all Dave can do as it presses through his shirt and touches his skin, is scream.

Scream, and scream, and scream, tangled in the blanket, sweating, clutching at the couch as he yells through his nightmare, wailing.

-

Karkat leaves the kitchen, stops in the bathroom to set a towel out for Dave, then goes into his room, closes the door and sighs. He sits down on his bed, and pulls out his phone to text Sollux back.

CG: HEY. THAT FUCKING SUCKS, BUT I GUESS WHAT ELSE IS NEW.

CG: I GUESS WE’LL HAVE TO FIGURE SOMETHING OUT. MAYBE TEREZI’S GIRLFRIEND KNOWS SOMEONE WHO NEEDS A PLACE, SHE SEEMS TO ALWAYS BE THROWING MASSIVE FUCKING PARTIES ANYWAY.

CG: WHATEVER, WE CAN TALK WHEN YOU GET BACK. NIGHT.

He hears the shower start up and remembers Dave will probably want a blanket tonight. He grabs one from the pile on his own bed, and takes it to the couch, laying it out all nice like it’s a bed.

He goes back to his room and shuts the door again. It feels weird, he’s not used to shutting the door in his own fucking apartment. Ever since he and Sollux started casually hooking up, they pretty much lost any sense of privacy between the two of them. Sollux keeps his shit locked up, but Karkat has keys to all of it just in case he wants to sneak in there during the night to blow him or something.

Lying down in bed, he reads a chapter of a romance novel e-book on his phone, then turns his lights out and falls asleep to the sound of Dave still fucking showering. God, his water bill is going to be ridiculous. Whatever, kid seems like he needs it.

Several hours later, a raw, terrified scream coming from his living room jerks him out of sleep.

He leaps up, tears down the hall, expecting to find a murder scene or some shit, but it’s just Dave, thrashing on the couch, screaming like he’s being fucking stabbed.

He shakes Dave as gently as he can, until he wakes up, tears streaking down his face and his back soaked with sweat. Karkat has no idea what to fucking do with this sobbing half-awake kid in his arms, so he just holds him, shushing him and rubbing his back. He’s in way over his fucking head, he tells himself.

-

Dave isn’t really awake until someone is holding him, but even in his bleary, half awake state, raw cries of fear escape his throat. He’s shaking, and he can’t seem to stop, violent tremors racking his body. He feels groggy, like he isn’t quite here yet, but Karkat’s arms around him, and he’s soft, and he’s warm, and he’s _not Bro_ , shaking him awake for some fight at some wild hour.

“I’m sorry-- I’m sorry, I didn’t-- I w-woke-- ‘m sorry--” Dave hyperventilates, his breathing coming in sobbing gasps, like he’s trying to swallow the space around him rather than breathe the air in it. His hands shoot to grab onto Karkat’s shirt, and he tries to ground himself.

Couch, blanket, shades, Karkat. Couch, blanket, shades, Karkat. He lists the things he can see around him, clearing the nightmare of knives and Bro and _pain_ from his head.

“‘M sorry--“ He repeats, a broken sob wracking his chest. Fuck. He didn’t mean to wake Karkat up, and now, he’s probably going to be mad about it.

Dave is too busy shaking and sweating and fisting and re-fisting Karkat’s shirt in his hands to worry about whether Karkat is going to kick him out for this. He sobs quieter now, his face buried in the warm of Karkat’s chest as he cradles him, and he tries not to think about how fucking pathetic he is, what a waste of space.

Even when his sobs calm to sniffles and whimpers, he hasn’t let Karkat’s shirt go. His knuckles are white with how tightly he’s holding this guy’s shirt, and fuck,

He doesn’t want to let go.

Karkat’s the first person who has been nice to him since he left home, and he’s terrified that if his hands slip from this piece of fabric,

He’ll be totally alone, again.

-

“Hey, shh, shh, it’s okay,” Karkat says gruffly, holding onto Dave as he sobs. What the fuck does he do? How does he fix this? What even set him off? The guy must have been having a nightmare or night terror or something.

Dave’s hands clutch onto his shirt like a lifeline, and he lets him, just keeps holding him and rubbing his back. He doesn’t know what else to do.

“It’s okay,” he repeats.

After a couple minutes, or maybe longer, he’s not really sure, Dave’s breathing returns to normal. He’s still got his fists wrapped up in Karkat’s shirt, though.

“Are you… are you okay?” Karkat asks him quietly. “You’re not hurt or anything, right, it was just a dream?”

He wants to extract Dave’s hands from his clothing so he can look at him better and make sure he’s alright. He has no idea why he gives a shit about this scrawny idiot who was literally trying to rob him not eight hours ago, but for some reason he feels weirdly responsible for him. Like he’d do almost anything to make sure he’s okay.

What a stupid fucking thought, he doesn’t even know this guy. This is so typical of himself, Karkat thinks, annoyed. Immediately getting attached to anyone or anything that whimpers at him and needs taking care of.

-

All Dave can do is nod. It was just a dream, and Karkat’s reassurances are… reassuring.

“I’m okay,” He whispers, his forehead still slick with sweat. He’s still shaking, but he thinks that now, it’s because of the cool wind against his sweaty back.

It takes him a moment, or maybe it’s two, but eventually, he slowly untangles his hands from Karkat’s shirt. It’s an _effort_ , to force his quaking hands to relax and draw away, but he does, and instead, he busies them now playing with the hem of his own shirt, grabbing and tugging at the fabric, using it to dry his eyes and nose.

“I’m okay,” He says again, this time, though, more self-assurance than one for Karkat. He nods as if to affirm it to himself, and takes a deep breath. He’s a big boy, he can do this. He’s Dave fucking Strider, not Dave crybaby asswipe.

Shifting, worried he’s making Karkat uncomfortable with all this closeness, as much as he just wants to lay his head over Karkat’s heart and stay there, he lifts his head and forces a smile across his face, despite the tears that still well in his hues, because that’s what he does. He’ll grin and bear it, even through the ache and confusion and pain that stabs his chest and lungs with knives and makes it hard to breathe. He doesn’t know why he’s trusting this- guy. Why he wants to climb into Karkat’s big, strong, manly arms and never move.

Karkat is… nice. Karkat is oddly… _safe._

Wow. Safe? That’s a new sensation.

“I’m fine. Sorry to wake you up, man, what a pain in the ass I must be. Have I said thanks for letting me crash? Because thanks. I’m sorry for waking you up, again, I’m totally fine. A-ok. Just a little spooked, a teeny bit, but I’m totally okay now.”

-

Dave’s expression suddenly changes from terrified and exhausted, to a haunted, unnatural smile. It kind of freaks Karkat out, if he’s honest. And then he’s saying he’s totally okay, literal minutes after he was _clearly_ having a full-blown panic attack?

“Just a teeny bit spooked?” Karkat looks at him. “You screamed so loud I thought someone was getting stabbed all the way across town!”

He huffs, trying to calm down and not act like an asshole. He’s not mad at the guy or anything, just. Seriously? Whatever, if he wants to pretend he’s okay, then fine, Karkat can pretend he’s okay. He moves back away from Dave a bit, feeling like it’s weird to keep cuddling him at this point.

He’s still… kind of worried about him, though, and he doesn’t want to go back to bed and just leave him out here alone. He grabs the remote and turns on the TV, setting the volume low so it’s just playing in the background. Scrolling through his Netflix queue, he selects a movie he’s seen a dozen times and hits play.

“You okay if I put this on?” he asks Dave. “Just don’t think I’ll be able to go right back to sleep at the moment.”

-

The space left between Karkat and Dave when Karkat shifts away from him is….  
suffocating. It's like a wet blanket shoved over his face and left there, and it leaves him reeling. He grabs for his blanket and draws it to his chin, eternally grateful, actually, that Karkat osmotic leaving.

He doesn’t want to be alone.

It's silent for a little while. Just the TV, Karkat, and Dave on the couch.  
Eventually, it’s too much, though, and Dave is shuffling closer to Karkat, trying to be inconspicuous about the way he leans into the heavier weight on the sofa.

“I ran away,” He says in a low tone, only just louder than the TV. “My home life sucked, so I ran away. That’s why I’m like, on the street and stuff,” Dave confesses, careful of his words. How much should he tell this guy? He’s only known him for a few hours, but he guesses that he does owe Karkat at least a bone to go on, since he _is_ letting Dave stay.

For tonight, anyway.

“I lived with my older brother,” He continues. “Just me an’ him, but I don’t think he knows how to raise a plant, let alone a kid.”

Dave gives a weak laugh, sniffs, as if reminiscing, and shakes his head.

“He- he’s a bit… _much_ , sometimes, y’know? Gets angry and stuff, but it’s not, like, his fault, though, he’s got his own issues, and I guess his anger is justified, but I couldn’t- I just couldn’t stay in the house, with him, anymore.”

He turns his head, enough to catch Karkat out the corner of his eye, and then draws his knees to his chest and hugs them, chin on his knees.

“I have that nightmare regularly. Sometimes I scream, sometimes I don’t. I’m sorry I woke you up.”

-

Karkat watches the movie for a while, letting his heart rate calm down as he mouths along with the familiar dialogue. He feels Dave shuffling up against him, and stifles the urge to wrap his arms around him. He lets him lean against him, though, and pretends he doesn’t notice. It feels kind of nice, honestly. He hasn’t had anyone to cuddle with in a little over a week, since Sollux left for Ohio. If nothing else, it’s nice just having a warm body next to him.

When Dave starts talking to him, telling him about why he ran away from home, he’s surprised but glad to be getting more information. He listens carefully, trying to hear the meaning between the words too. He doesn’t like the sound of this older brother. Sounds like a bad situation, in any case.

“I’m glad you’re out of there, then,” he says honestly. “How long have you been on the street? And why did you come to the fight tonight, anyway? No offense, but you’re not exactly the right build for wrestling.”

He picks up Dave’s noodley little arm with two of his fingers, and wiggles it around to demonstrate his point.

-

“On the street? About a week. Maybe two,” Dave says, trying to recall the night he left home and the rest of the time in between then and now. He doesn’t think he’s slept or eaten much in between times, but- alas.

He’s glad Karkat hasn’t pushed him away, in fact, when the other grabs his arm and comically waves it, he even manages a soft laugh, eyes scrunching at the corners as he tugs his limb back to himself and feigns a pout.

“I’m perfectly built for fighting, what do you mean? I beat your ass into that mat so hard you passed out.” He jokes sarcastically, grateful for the way the air seems to come easier, now, like the room isn’t so… heavy.

Dave sighs, shrugs, relaxes from his tense knee-hugging position. “I thought I could make some money. Some muscle. Prove to myself that I can make it on my own, that I don’t need my brother to survive, like I thought I did, for so long.”

Silence again, for a moment, and then Dave seems to have a revelation, and he sits up on his knees and grabs Karkat’s arm.

“Oh my god. You can teach me,” He says, eyes bright and mouth quirking into a grin that’s bordering on deranged as he shakes Karkat’s arm back and forth in sleep-deprived, epiphany fueled excitement. “You can teach me how to knock little twinks in the back of an abandoned Walmart, and I can pay you back for not letting me die in the Walmart locker rooms, and the way I phrased all of that is a little fucked but also not the point--“

Dave takes a breath, still grinning dumbly.

“Teach me how to fight. Teach me how to _win_.”

-

Dave’s little laugh seems to knock something loose in Karkat’s heart, and he melts just a tiny bit before he can catch himself. Stop it, he tells himself.

The feeling only gets worse as he listens to Dave talking excitedly about wanting him to teach him how to fight.

Karkat looks at him doubtfully. “Ok, first of all, I don’t think _you_ can exactly get away with calling anyone _else_ a little twink. And second of all…”

Fuck, he kind of can’t think of a good reason to say no to this guy. Aside from “fuck you, I don’t want to,” and that’s not even really the truth. He doesn’t want to get unnecessarily entangled with this disaster of a kid, sure. But he also knows he’ll probably sleep better at night if he knows Dave’s got at least one dubiously reliable source of income.

“Huh. That might actually not be a bad idea,” he admits. “You’re not as dumb as you look, I guess.”

He narrows his eyes at him.

“Just to warn you, though, I am probably going to be an absolutely shit teacher. I’ve only ever taught myself how to do this, and I have a completely different body type and therefore a different fighting style than you. But… if you still want to, then fuck it. Sure. I’ll train your dumb ass.”

-

Dave rolls his eyes when Karkat says that he can't really call anyone else a twink, but his grin doesn't fade. It's still there when Karkat talks to himself, and there still when he says that he'll train him.

His heart jumps in his chest. Karkat's gonna train him. He's gonna train him! This beast of a man has just agreed to train him, and never has Dave ever felt more confident of anything in his life.

"Body type, schmody type, how different can it be? You teach me how you fight, and I'll, like, adapt," He says, sitting down again much closer to Karkat when he does relax again. He's buzzing with eagerness, though, and he can't seem to sit still, his mind sizzling.

He tries to think about everything he's learnt from Bro. Seen in videos. He's watched some stuff about self-defense, and it all seems very close-up. Even in the ring the other day, it was all close-up.

Karkat's body pressed to his, bigger than him, _better_ than him….

Dave squirms at the thoughts, and bites his lip for a moment, furrows his brow. That was weird. For a second, he thought--

Nah. He's just tired. There's no way he was actually thinking about bumping and grinding with Karkat with less clothes on, definitely not.

He isn’t gay. He's never been gay, he isn’t _going_ to be gay.

He really needs some sleep.

Yawning, he draws the blanket up to his neck and leans over onto Karkat, resting his head against his shoulder. He closes his eyes and wills his excitement to calm, because it's useless now, and he should save it for like, tomorrow, when they start training.

"Thanks, Karkat," he murmurs a little groggily, yawning again.

-

“Yeah, no problem,” Karkat says, more softly than he means to. He looks at Dave, curled up against his shoulder, so much smaller than himself, and wonders what the fuck he’s just agreed to.

Despite himself, he’s a little excited to start training the kid. Dave’s definitely got potential, even though he’s small. If he’d been up against somebody besides Karkat last night, he might have even stood half a chance.

Karkat thinks back on when he first learned to fight. He was twelve, the age that troll homeschoolfeeding ends and they’re supposed to start going to school with the humans. To integrate, or whatever the fuck.

Within the first week of class, the news got out that he was a mutantblood, and all of a sudden it seemed like every kid in the school, trolls and humans alike, were going out of their way to trip him up in the hallways, knock his books out of his arms, act like he smelled bad if they had to sit at a table with him, and jeer insults at him all fucking day long. Humans didn’t care about the hemospectrum that much, but they sure loved to latch onto any excuse to bully a kid for being different.

A few of the younger highbloods got it in their head that they wanted to play “cull the mutant” on the playground, and Karkat started coming home with bruises every day. He always fought back, hard, even though he was smaller than the highbloods.

In late high school, he was out of class for two weeks for his adult moult, and he came back to school eighty pounds heavier and a foot taller than before. After that, nobody messed with him anymore, but he’d already had nearly five years of daily fighting behind him. He ended up joining the school wrestling team to burn off the energy he was no longer using up fighting his classmates. His coach was actually a decent troll, a rustblood, and he told Karkat if it weren’t for his blood he could probably go pro. Unfortunately, they both knew that wasn’t possible, since troll sports were notorious for their hemocist practices.

Karkat finishes watching the movie, then starts another one. He’s pretty fucking tired but he doesn’t want to leave Dave out here alone, just in case he has another nightmare. He ends up drifting off to sleep toward the end of the second movie.

The sound of the front door banging open wakes him up a few hours later. He looks groggily up at the doorway to see his roommate, and best friend, Sollux Captor, entering the apartment, carrying a heavy looking suitcase and wearing his usual scowl. Karkat’s heart beats a little faster and he tries to stifle a smile, fuck, he’s really missed this guy.


	2. friiend2 wiith benefiit2

Sollux had never been so excited to be home. The weekend away had been loud, frustrating, and had he mentioned loud?

There was a kink in his neck as he dragged himself down the hall to his apartment. He’d known Karkat for _years_ , and he did, even though he’d say not, miss the guy when he was away.

He was back now though, and he was certainly ready to get back to their habit of banging in weird places and eating each other out on the couch. God, two weeks with his right hand as his only company had been _rough_.

He was about to announce his presence as he shoved open the door, after fumbling with his keys, but alas, when he turned to see his closest friend/fuckbuddy cuddled with someone new, it took the words away before his lips had even formed them.

“Who the fuck ith that?” He asked gruffly, frowning as “Who the fuck” jerked to wakefulness, rubbing his dumb bleary eyes.

Sollux gave Karkat a look.

If he was going to move on in mere weeks, he could at least do it with another troll. He dumped his suitcase by the door and shrugged off his coat, dumping it with his bags, and crossed his arms, his usual frown deepening as he surveyed the homewrecker moving in on his man, _and_ his spot on the couch.

He pulled himself up with a huff.

Karkat wasn’t his man. They had sex, frequently, yeah, but they weren’t in any kind of committed relationship. They were just….

Really, close. Sollux supposed that if Karkat wanted a matesprit, it was fine, he’d just….. wished the guy would have told him.

“‘M Dave.”

Sollux blinked, jerked from his musings to the sound of the ruffle-haired blond sliding shades onto his face and yawning, pulling himself from Karkat with an awkward pat to the others shoulder as he yawned. “I just crashed for the nigh’.”

“For the night.”

Already suspicious. Karkat never just let anyone _crash for the night_. He said that, but then he got attached and made commitments and promises and suddenly, Sollux was sharing his spot on the couch.

“Right.”

-

Karkat gets up from the couch, yawning and stretching out a cramp in his shoulder. Fuck sleeping on the couch. “Dave, this is my roommate Sollux. Sollux, this little asshole is the kid who tried to wrestle me last night, and ended up passed out in the locker room after. He wouldn’t fucking wake up, so I brought him home so he wouldn’t get kidnapped or shanked or something.”

Sollux has a grumpy fucking look on his face, and Karkat guesses he’s probably exhausted and annoyed from his trip. He’s all greasy-haired and cute, just the way he was when he left, and Karkat considers going up to give him a welcome home kiss, but he feels like maybe it’s weird to do that in front of Dave? He goes to the kitchen to start up coffee instead, figuring they could probably all use it.

“How was your trip?” He asks. “Any crazy bullshit with the job this time?”

The coffee now started, he sits down at the kitchen table, yawning again. Fuck, he did _not_ get enough sleep last night. What else is new.

For some reason there’s an awkward tension in the air, between him, Sollux, and Dave. He has no fucking idea why, though. Does Sollux think he and Dave hooked up? Is he judging him for it? Is he _jealous_? He’s never been pissy about Karkat bringing people home before. Although now that Karkat thinks about it, he hasn’t had sex with anyone besides Sollux in, like, a year. Huh.

Not that he actually did fuck Dave, or anything. So why does he feel weirdly guilty as though he did? What the fuck would he have to feel guilty about in the first place? He and Sollux aren’t exclusive, they’re not even in a quadrant or anything. Karkat frowns, annoyed that he feels like he did something wrong, but he isn’t even sure what it was.

-

Sollux relaxes, albeit only slightly when Karkat explains why there was a strange little twink man in their house. He doesn't know Karkat to be the type to bang someone mere hours after they met, so he _thinks_ that it's safe to assume nothing happened.

He's mad that Karkat doesn't kiss him. He _wants_ to kiss Karkat-- He _wants_ Karkat to kiss him. To show how he missed him.

He watches Dave as he slowly gets up from the couch, yawning again. He's shorter than Sollux, and Sollux, being short as it is, takes solace in that fact, and stands a little straighter. Dave doesn't notice, too busy scratching his ass and hugging his blanket to his side.

What a baby.

"Jutht the uthual thit. Incompetent foolth with no clue what the fuck they're doing."

Sollux sighs, reaches into the fridge for something to eat, and then changes his mind and closes it.

He doesn't want to eat anything besides Karkat's dick, right now, honestly.

"I'm gonna take another shower," Dave says suddenly, tossing his blanket back onto the couch as Sollux glares at him through his bicoloured lenses. Another one?

"Lasts nights one was like, eighteen simultaneous orgasms, and I have to-" He pauses, his hand hovering over his chest carefully as if hesitating to touch something beneath his shirt. "Do a thing. Hey, Karkles, do you have a first-aid kit?"

Karkles.

_Karkles???!_

Oh, this kid...

Sollux reaches into a top cupboard and throws Dave a red bag with a cross on it without another word. The asshole fumbles to catch it, which makes Sollux smirk, but once he has it, he winks at Karkat, which makes his smugness suddenly sour.

"Nice. Don't have too much fun without me," Dave chirps, turning on his heel for the shower.

Sollux snarls in the back of his throat.

-

Okay, yeah, Sollux is definitely pissed about something. Did he just _snarl_ at Dave?? Karkat is _so_ going to get to the bottom of this.

But first…

He walks over to Sollux and backs him up against the kitchen counter, grabbing him around the waist and kissing him, licking his tongue into his mouth, familiar and eager. Fuckkk, he missed this. Sollux tastes like gross Mountain Dew and airplane peanuts, and Karkat still fucking wants him, what the fuck. He runs his fingers through Sollux’s hair, gives him another quick kiss, then steps back a bit.

“Hey,” he says. “What the fuck’s going on? Why are you acting like someone pissed in your cereal?”

He reaches his hand out and grabs Sollux’s, dragging him over to the kitchen table and scooping him onto his lap. He’s so skinny and lanky, and Karkat’s heart thumps fondly for him. He tries to make his expression stern, though, so Sollux knows he actually means business.

-

When Karkat moves towards him, Sollux tries to hide the eager way he wants to meet him halfway. He avoids his gaze and tries to busy himself looking at the couch, because he's _mad_ , jealous, and _mad_ because of it. Its a dumb sensation, but when Karkat is cornering him against the bench, he can't _help_ himself.

He grabs for Karkat's wrists, holding him close, and returns the kiss with just as much eager, heated want. His mouth falls open for the other as easily as his legs would on _any_ day, and he huffs, eyes fluttering shut, chasing Karkat's lips.

He almost whines when Karkat stops kissing him.

His cheeks burn with yellow at the gentle way Karkat coaxes him close, and he fights the urge to try and flip the situation around, have Karkat on _his_ lap, even though the troll would probably crush him.

Yeah, Sollux. Why are you acting like someone pissed in your cereal.

"Ith dumb." He grumbles, running a hand through his messy hair, sighing. At least he can talk to Karkat. Karkat is _easy_ to talk to. Sollux isn't worried about saying something dumb or fucking something up when he talks to Karkat, and its nice.

"I wanted to come home and rip my clotheth off and rail you into the couch. Or have you rail me, whatever," he answers honestly, folding his arms and sitting back a little. Karkat's stare doesn't phase him, though, and he deliberately grinds his hips down into the other, once, to test the waters. "But inthtead you were there, cuddled up to thome dipthtick you'd never mentioned before."

Sollux pouts, deliberately, and also tactfully avoids admitting his jealousy. Either Karkat will pick up on it, or he won't.

Either way, Sollux wants dick involved in the next eight seconds before Dave returns. Karkat is, for now, at the least, his, and he'll kill to make the most of it.

-

“I never mentioned him before because I never _met_ him before last night,” Karkat defends himself, rolling his eyes. “And I wasn’t _cuddled up_ to him. Okay, maybe a little bit, but it was only because he woke up in the dead of night screaming like he got stabbed in the fucking bloodpusher and it freaked me the fuck out. I didn’t want a repeat of that, so I just… kept him company instead. Didn’t really intend to fall asleep on the couch or anything.”

Privately, he thinks Sollux being a jealous little bitch is kind of adorable as shit, and it makes him want to rail the guy into the couch, exactly like he asked for. The way Sollux is grinding against him is also encouraging that line of thought.

Maybe he fucking will. Dave’s shower last night took like an hour, so they probably have plenty of time. His water bill will suffer, but at least his asshole of a roommate will be happy.

And he might not have such a terrible time either.

Karkat rubs his hand up Sollux’s side, underneath his shirt, lingering on his sensitive grubscars. The way Sollux shivers under his touch makes a rumbling, satisfied purr start up in Karkat’s chest. He draws Sollux down into a kiss again, feeling the split ends of his tongue curling and lapping around his own. He grabs him by the hips, grinding Sollux down onto his own crotch, where his own bulge is beginning to stir awake.

He hums eagerly into Sollux’s mouth, then breaks the kiss to ask, “Wanna take this to the couch?”

-

"You could have thaid thomething in last nighth text," Sollux breathes in reply, arching into Karkat's touch as he hears the water start in the bathroom. They'll have to be quick, and quiet, probably, but Sollux doesn't care as he licks into Karkat's mouth hungrily.

Fuck, he'd missed him. He groans softly into the kiss, a chirr escaping him as psionic powers crackle around his horns at the excitement that thrums through his veins. His pusher skips a beat, another rumble bubbling in his chest as he presses his chest into Karkat's hands and turns the kiss hotter, all sharp teeth and wet tongue, huffing hotly as his eyes slip closed and his cheeks turn a soft yellow.

"Yeah, yeah. Couch, now," Sollux manages in a breathy groan, chasing Karkat's mouth even as he pulls away.

He slips from the other trolls lap and drags him to his feet, grabbing the hem of his shirt and yanking it up and off, hands immediately moving to wander over the others muscular torso.

"I thought about you every fucking night," Sollux whispers, pecking kisses across Karkat's lips as they stumble-dance towards the couch, Sollux's hands eagerly roaming and slipping around Karkats waist, tugging and guiding.

"Every fucking night, with my handth around my bulge, withing it wath you touching me," he adds, grazing his fingers over Karkat's own red grubscars.

-

“I don’t report to you about every fucking thing that happens in this apartment, Sol,” Karkat snarks at him. “But I’ll make sure to let you know next time some idiot passes out in our living room. Didn’t realize it would be such a sore spot for you.”

He follows Sollux willingly across the room, landing on the couch with an “oof” as Sollux piles on top of him, with Karkat kissing and groping him from underneath.

“You horny motherfucker,” Karkat grins. “I guess I kind of missed you too. Just for your body, though.” He reaches his hand down Sollux’s pants and feels his bulges already out and writhing. Ffffuck, that’s hot. He squeezes them rhythmically and lets them curl around his fingers. He can smell the strong tang of Sol’s material and he wants to get his mouth on him, now.

He sits up, pushing Sollux down onto his back on the couch, and tugs his pants all the way down. Without any hesitation, he sinks his mouth down over Sollux’s bulges, both of them at once, and slurps at them eagerly. His fingers find Sollux’s nook and he shoves two of them inside. His hands are large, and Sollux’s nook is so tight and hot and wet… Fuck.

Karkat takes his other hand and unzips his own pants, pulling his bulge out to stroke it. He sighs with relief. Honestly he hadn’t been touching himself much this past week, at least not nearly as much as Sollux apparently was. His bulge is extra sensitive, with every touch feeling like fucking heaven. He moans into Sollux’s crotch, still letting the twin bulges thrash around in his mouth, tangling with his tongue.

-

"Well, you _th'ould_ tell me about everything that happen'th, becau'th I pay ninety per-th'ent of the rent, you th'lacker," Sollux teases, grinning giddily as he straddles Karkat, groaning softly into the kisses. He grinds down into his touches and against his body beneath him, and rolls his eyes.

"Only for my body? Aw, KK, I'd be hurt if you weren't th'uch a th'oftie that I know doe'th'n't mean that, becau'th if you did mean that, my a'th would be gone before you could th'ay--"

Cut off by a low moan when Karkat's hand slips down his trousers, Sollux throws his head back and ruts his hips up into the others touch. He'd been halfway horny when he walked in the door, so it’s no surprise that his wriggly has been out for at least a good five minutes.

"Ffffuck…-" Sollux finishes in a breathy tone, the familiar warm and coarse feeling of Karkat's palm around his twin bulges drawing a sigh from him. He squeaks in surprise, glasses askew, when the other troll pushes him over, but before he has time to be annoyed about it, Karkat is dragging his pants down and swallowing his bulges in one, a flash of hot desire making his vision blur for a second.

"Fuck, _th'it_ , KK…- Oh, fff- uhnh…-"

He moans, arching his back, his hands tangling and fisting in Karkats curls, eventually grabbing his horns to tug him a little deeper, resisting, for now, the urge to fuck into his mouth as the fingers in his nook draw louder sounds of pleasure from him, entirely forgetting to be quiet.

The two golden tentacles wind and fill Karkat's mouth, digging into his cheeks and feeling behind his teeth, and the sensation is amplified by Karkat fingering him. Sollux moans and writhes, arching his back and whimpering pitifully as he rubs at Karkat's hornbeds, panting softly.

"F-fuck, K-kar- F-fuck me a-already, w-on't y-you? Ah- _oh, that feel'th th'o good_ … Fuck, ah, there! KK, gog…-"

-

Karkat shudders as Sollux rubs at the sensitive base of his horns and pulls at his hair. It sends a jolt of heat directly to his bulge, _fuck_.

Sollux wants to get fucked already, huh? Karkat guesses he can give him what he wants. He pulls his fingers out of Sollux’s nook and lifts his head, leaning over to kiss him, shoving his tongue in deep to make Sollux taste himself. He kisses Sollux, grabbing his head with a messy hand and rubbing at his double-set horns.

Directing his bulge into Sollux’s hole, he thrusts sloppily inside. He groans at the tight, hot nook clenching around him hungrily. The sounds Sollux is making, he’s so loud and affected, it makes Karkat burn even hotter.

“You like that? Like taking my fat bulge in your tight little nook, yeah,” Karkat pants.

He grinds against him, letting his bulge do most of the work, thrashing around inside. Karkat’s own growls and chitters fill the air, his body making noises that are more possessive than they have any right to be, but whatever, his brain knows it’s just for the sex.

He and Sollux aren’t in a quadrant and they like it that way, it works for them. He loves how easy it is, how convenient to live with your best friend who’s also happy and willing to get fucked at any hour of the day. And without any of the confusing emotional bullshit that comes with an official relationship.

“Fuck, Sol, you’re so good, so hot…” Karkat can feel Sollux’s nook clenching around him, squeezing his sensitive organ. God _damn_ , how is this fucking unshowered shut-in nerd so stupidly good in bed??

-

Sollux arches his back, a long, slow chirr rumbling up his throat and past his lips when Karkat kisses him, and he whines pitifully as his now empty nook stirrs, his hips bucking up into air.

"Come on, come _on_ \--" He huffs breathlessly, his arms lazily slung around Karkat's neck.

As soon as he feels the thick bulge of Karkats cock prodding at him, he gives an eager chirp, his own bulges trying to guide him, and then he's sinking into his heat, and Sollux throws his head back into the couch and spreads his thighs wider, hefting the one hanging off of the seat around Karkat's waist, hooking him deeper.

"Fuck ye'thhhh--" He growls low in his throat, an eager grin splitting his face as he fucks his hips down onto Karkat's bulge. Fuck, when did he get so _thick_? It's like the first time, almost.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, _fuck_ , KK, you're th'o fucking _big_ -" He gasps and moans, shuddering as he digs his blunt fingernails into the others shoulders. "Oh, oh, yeah, _fuck me, fuck me, KK_..."

-

Karkat hides a smile at Sol’s pet name for him. He wouldn’t let anyone else call him that, but Sollux is… different. He lets him get away with more shit. As is evident by the way he’s fucking him on their couch right now, he wouldn’t be doing that with just any friend.

Jegus, stop being sappy, Karkat, and just fuck the guy.

He loves how responsive Sollux is, with his constant streams of verbal affirmation that Karkat is, indeed, doing a great job of fucking his brains out. How he shakes and growls and chitters under him.

Karkat leans down, kissing him heatedly while he fucks into him. Fuck, goddammit, he’s getting close already. He concentrates on fondling Sollux’s grubscars with one hand, the other hand on his horns, while still sliding his tongue into Sollux’s mouth, and letting his bulge make a mess of Sollux’s nook. Trying to overstimulate him, speed him up to be on Karkat’s level of oh-fuck-I’m-about-to-come.

It feels so good to touch Sollux all over, playing him like an instrument, making him shout and writhe and leak his yellow juices all over Karkat’s thighs. It’s distracting as hell, and Karkat has to look away so he doesn’t lose it early.

He keeps going, trying to hold back his orgasm, wanting to feel Sollux reach his peak and gush all over him.

-

It takes not a lot of time for Sollux to get _really_ excited, and when Karkat starts to kiss him, touch him, he’s already starting to fall apart. He gasps and grabs at Karkat, moaning and throwing his hips up in excitement as his orgasm builds, growing more and more intense, closer and closer.

“Oh, gog, fu-ck, fuck, fuck, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, right there, fuck, KK--“ he huffs breathily into Karkat’s mouth, shaking and panting.

Its been so long since he had another body on top of his, fucking into him, and it feels so good that he’s surprised he hasn’t come yet. He whines and chirrs, squirming and moaning as he suckles on Karkat’s tongue, his split appendages winding around him and dragging him closer, locking their mouths together.

He mewls and sweats, aching his back into Karkat’s wandering hands, and breaks the kiss to throw his head back into the couch and moan like a pornstar, his fingers dragging down Karkat’s shoulders.

“I’m gonna c-um, _oh_ , KK, you’re gonna make me cum th’o hard, fuck, _fuck, Fuck!_ I’m- I- Karkat!”

Blabbering incessantly, like he has no idea how to keep his mouth shut, Sollux yells and grits his teeth as his orgasm rips through him, his body going rigid as he clamps down on Karkat’s bulge and _throbs_ , sobbing and gasping with delight as his thighs shake and he digs his nails into Karkat’s back.

“Ye’th, ye’th, _ye’th_! Fuck! Fuck! Oh, fuck, yeah, ah!” Sollux cries, every muscle tense as he rides out his orgasm, nook cinching and throbbing as if gasping for air as it tries to draw Karkat in deep and not let him leave, copious amounts of his golden fluid spurting from his twin bulges, up over his and Karkat’s chests and stomachs, hot, sticky, the same seeping from his nook and staining their grey thighs and the couch beneath them.

“Oh, fuck..-“ Sollux whines, whimpering pitifully as he steadily rocks his hips to relieve the ache. “Th’o fucking good, KK...”

-

Jesus god, Sollux is _loud_. There’s no way Dave hasn’t heard them by now, but with his bulge buried globes-deep in hot nook, Karkat can’t bring himself to care. Whatever, it’s his fucking house, he can fuck his roommate on the couch if he wants to.

Sollux’s nails dig into his back painfully and Karkat whines. Fucking painslut, he tells himself. He’d never admit it, but this… thing they do, the mixing of flushed and caliginous pailing, it turns him on like nothing else. He knows it’s fucked up, but he can’t help it. And maybe the fucked-up-ness is part of why it gets him so hot.

Sollux’s cries build up louder and louder until he’s clenching down on Karkat, orgasming under him like the hottest little bitch. Karkat was already fucking close, and having Sollux come on his bulge pushes him over the edge.

“Fuck-- FUCK-- Sol! Ahh--- Fffuu--!” Pink genmat gushes from his bulge and nook, he thrusts deep into Sollux and moans loudly. Fuck, it feels so good!! He fucks into him, chasing the last of his orgasm, panting and huffing as his claws dig into the couch cushions.

He looks down at the mess they made, grimacing. Man, they really need to stop doing this on the couch, there’s only so many ways to hide the stains.

-

"Fuck... Fuck..." Sollux gasps and pants, wrapping his arms around Karkat's neck in the aftermath of their orgasms, their mingled yelling no doubt loud enough for that _still-showering_ prick to hear.

Sollux grins to himself, his face buried in the side of Karkat's neck. _’Yeah, little menace. Hear that? He's my couch fuck.’_

"We-.. We gotta get up..." The lankier of the two breathes, lips grazing across Karkat's neck and jaw as he pulls away and draws the other into a soft, too-tender kiss. He can hear the shower shut off, just now, and he groans at the realisation that they have to _get up_ now.

He doesn't wanna get up. He wants to cuddle with Karkat, maybe bang again, talk about their weeks apart.

With a sigh, Sollux shoulders Karkat up and pulls himself away with a low moan, purring deep in his throat as he examines the mess between his legs, leaking from his nook.

"Good thing the shower'th free now," he grins, swiping up some of the pink-red genmat from his inner leg and licking it suggestively from his finger with his double tongue.

He shuffles to the laundry and grabs two warmly damp towels, drying himself off before he retreats to toss Karkat a towel too.

He stares despondently at the couch as he pulls his boxers and jeans on, hopping around on one foot as he pulls them up.

"I think it'th time for a new couch, KK."

-

Karkat’s nook clenches at the sight of Sollux licking up his come… fucking god. His bulge has retracted already, but he feels a small wave of arousal despite the fact that he just came. God, his best friend is fucking hot.

He grabs the towel from Sollux and wipes himself down, scrubbing at the pink and yellow stains on his thighs.

“Well, if we do get a new couch, you’re gonna have to pay for it, because I’m barely making my share of the rent as it is,” Karkat grumbles, tugging his own pants back on. “Speaking of which, I guess we should talk about what you texted me about. After showering, though. You can go first, I’ll clean up out here.”

Using his towel, Karkat sops up as much of the genetic material as he can, then flips the cushions over. There’s some older stains on the other side, too, but. Eh. At least they’re dry.

He sits back on the couch, yawning. Fuck, he really did not get much sleep last night. Grabbing his phone, he checks to make sure Gamzee deposited his money from the fight, which he has, and he grumbles at the still-too-low balance in his bank account. He scrolls through Instagrub for a while, idly double-tapping a few posts while he waits for Sollux to finish showering so he can go wash up.


	3. Training Montage

Fuck.  
 _Fuck._

That was bad. This was bad. Is he bad for this?

Dave stands, cock in hand, against the bathroom door. He's been listening to Karkat and Sollux fuck for the past few minutes, and now there's come on the bathroom floor and on his hands and his thighs--

Fuck.  
Fuck.  
Fuck!

He should _not_. Have done that.  
He should _not_.

But he did. And now, Dave feels incredibly embarrassed. But shit, what was he supposed to do? They were moaning so loud, and Dave could practically _hear_ the slap of skin on skin. He swallows. Hard, and takes three seconds to wash the come off his skin in the abandoned shower. He cleans the floor, dresses, stares at himself in the mirror.

It's fine. It's fine! Heaps of people get off to other people banging, that's what porn is, right?

There's a rapping on the door, and Dave yelps, resisting the urge to cry, “I'm not fapping!”

"Oi! Hurry up, I want a th'ower,” comes Sollux's voice from the other side of the door, and Dave scampers for his shades and dirty towel.

There's no more come in here, right, right???

He pushes the bathroom door open, grins despite his flushed cheeks. He'll blame it on the heat in the room.

"Sorry, water too good." He says, before he slides past Sollux out the door. He can feel the other’s eyes on him, burning into his skull--

Jesus.

He dumps his dirty shit in the laundry and then flops down on the couch beside Karkat and yawns, but freezes mid yawn.

_They just banged on this couch. JUST. NOW._

He tries to now jump up too fast, and pretends to just be stretching his legs.

_There's no way they know, man. There's no way you jerked your cock to some strangers banging and they know about it._

"So," Dave tries to start up a conversation, clearing his throat. "Are we gonna train today?"

-

Karkat watches Dave sit down on the couch, and then jump back up again awkwardly. He looks at him, sees his flushed cheeks-- God dammit, he definitely heard them. He’s probably thinking about how gross this couch is now...

Karkat _refuses_ to be embarrassed about it. It’s his fucking house, his fucking couch, and he can have all the sex on it that he wants to, dammit! Dave’s the one who’s a pervert for listening in, probably. Fucking, whatever.

He gratefully takes the conversational bait from Dave. “Yeah, we can train today if you’re ready to start. I’ve got some shit to hash out with Sollux roommate-wise, but I was thinking we can go up on the roof after that?”

He shifts uncomfortably in his sticky sweatpants, Sollux better finish his shower soon so Karkat can go wash up.

“You hungry?” he asks Dave. “I can make some toast or something. Got coffee too.”

He moves to the kitchen, still in view of the couch, and pours himself a cup, chugging half of it down and sighing. What a fucking day it’s been already.

-

Dave stretches his arms and watches Karkat get up. His eyes fly back to the couch, and he desperately tries not to search for all the questionable stains that are staring him in the face.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and tries to hide how truly excited he is to have Karkat all up on him while they're “training.”

He's not hungry, but there is something he does want to do.

"Do you have a phone or a computer I can borrow? I wanna check my emails." He says, rocking on his heels. He knows it's probably a bad idea. He smashed his phone before he left so that he wouldn't be tempted to read his emails or messages.

But the curiosity is killing him. What if John is worried? Or Rose? He hasn't said shit to them in weeks, they're sure to be concerned.

If there's anything from Bro, he'll just ignore it.

Sollux is out of the shower at about the same time as Dave asks, and Dave finds a phone tossed at the back of his head.

"Keep it." Sollux grunts as he pulls his shirt on over his wet hair.  
"I've got ton'th."

Dave rubs his skull as he collects the device from the floor. Nothing dramatic, it seems, but he does wonder for a moment if it isn't stolen. Sollux doesn't seem the type to have a naked photo of a celebrity as his lock screen.

Unless he is?

Dave slumps into a kitchen chair after muttering thanks, watching Sollux slide into the kitchen. He doesn't see Sollux tap Karkat's ass, but Sollux wouldn't care if he did, anyway.

He opens his email browser after deftly avoiding any questionable apps and the image gallery.

There's—  
A lot.  
A lot lot. Of messages.  
He scrolls through it all, trying not to give into the temptation of his brothers messages, and taps on an email from John.

**RECEIVED; ONE WEEK AGO.  
From; ectoBiologist  
To; turntechGodhead.**

\-- 0800 --

_Dude, where are you? You've been gone for ages._

_Seriously, everyone is worried._

_Is it your Bro?_

_Dave. Cmon, man._

\--1900--

_All day??? Are you ignoring me?_

**RECEIVED; THREE DAYS AGO**

**From; ectoBiologist  
To; turntechGodhead**

\--1300--

_Dave?_

_You're so quiet._

_Are you okay?_

**RECEIVED; YESTERDAY  
From; ectoBiologist  
To; turntechGodhead**

\--0700--

_I'm getting really worried, Dave. Where are you?  
Please be safe…_

Dave feels a stab of guilt. He wants to reply, but at the same time, he's worried that his brother is monitoring his emails.  
He can't risk it.

He's about to click away when another message comes in.

**RECEIVED; TODAY.  
From; turntechGodhead  
To; turntechGodhead.**

_I see you, Dave._

His blood runs cold. He stares with wide eyes at the phone, his hands suddenly shaking, sweating. He knew it.

**From; turntechGodhead  
To; turntechGodhead**

_You do know that this escape is pointless, right? I can track where you are. Especially now, since you turned on your phone. Running was dumb, Dave. Are you dying in a ditch yet? You can't survive without me, we both know that._

_Come home, Dave._

_Come home._

Dave swallows. He stares at the screen, watching the emails come through, reading them over and over and over. The wound on his chest aches.

**RECEIVED; TODAY.  
From; turntechGodhead  
To; turntechGodhead**

_The roof, little bro. Come home and see me on the roof._

-

Karkat sees Sollux coming into the kitchen and chugs the rest of his coffee in one swift gulp. He chokes slightly when Sollux slaps him on the ass, but recovers and puts his mug in the sink, glaring at him. He wants to shove him up against the wall and maul him all over again. If Dave wasn’t here, he probably would.

Instead he goes to his room and grabs a change of clothes, then turns on the shower. The hot water runs out after just a couple minutes, and he groans, shivering and scrubbing himself down quickly. This fucking kid, coming into his house, trying to steal his lettuce, using up all his fucking hot water…

After he towels off, he gets dressed and stares at himself in the mirror. What the fuck is he doing? Bringing some little scamp into their apartment, feeding him and babysitting him, fucking cuddling him through his nightmares. What’s his fucking plan here? How is he going to get rid of Dave if he has nowhere else to go?

Can he really live with himself if he just throws him back out on the streets?

Karkat already knows the answer to that.

An idea occurs to him. Sollux did say they needed to look for a new roommate... Maybe if Karkat trains Dave up well enough, he can start earning some income. They could let him stay on the couch, in exchange for a couple hundred dollars a month towards the rent.

When Karkat comes back out, he’s got a plan hashed out and ready to share with Dave and Sollux. Unfortunately, when he walks into the kitchen, he finds the two of them up in each other’s fucking faces and yelling at each other.

“Hey, whoa, what the fuck,” he shouts, pulling Dave away from Sollux, who looks like he’s about to laser him to death on the spot. “What the hell is going on in here?”

-

Dave drops the phone on the table, silent. He bounces his knee anxiously, in thought, and barely notices as Karkat leaves for the shower. He’s too busy fretting. If Bro knows where he is, then-- fuck. What’s he gonna do?

“You’re not th’taying,” comes Sollux’ voice, snapping him out of his thoughts. He stares incredulously through his shades and furrowed his brow at the troll, who’s making coffee for himself, it seems.

“Sorry, what?” Dave asks with a scoff, folding his arms across his chest.

“I th’aid,” Sollux repeats dangerously, his own face twisted into a scowl beneath his glasses. “You’re not. Th’taying.”

Okay. What’s this guys problem? All Dave did was stay the night, and all he’s gonna do is train with Karkat, so why is he so fucking grumpy?

“I wasn’t going to,” he replies curtly, slowly dragging himself to his feet and moving into the kitchen to rifle through the fridge.

Sollux grunts. “Good. Be gone by lunch.”

“Lunch?” Dave stands straight from where he’s scrabbling through the fridge, shooting Sollux a glare. He’s got his back turned, stirring sugar into his cup, but he can feel Dave’s eyes on him. “Look, man, you’ve got no idea of the shit I’m going through right now. If I could be gone by lunch, I’d love to be,” he snaps, frustrated now as he reaches for a can of faygo.

Sollux turns and snatches it from his hand. “Thi’th food isn’t your’th.”

“Karkat said I could have whatever I liked.”

“Yeah? Well Karkat’th having a lap’th’e in judgement,” Sollux snarls, tossing the can onto the bench where it fizzles.

Dave feels a bubble of anger rising in his chest, and he slams the fridge door shut. “What the fuck is your problem, man?”

Something that Dave doesn’t understand fizzles at the tips of Sollux’s horns, and the troll looms over Dave in an attempt to look intimidating. Dave just folds his arms.

“You. Moving in,” he growls.

“I’m not ‘moving in,’” Dave scoffs, making air quotes with his fingers. “You’re so dramatic.”

“Dramatic? Th’ay’th you, Mr ‘you don’t know what I’m going through.’”

“If anything, I’d say you’re jealous,” Dave suddenly quips, pursing his lips almost smugly. It's a low blow, but… he’s not backing down.

Sollux looks like he’s going to blow a fuse. “Jealou’th of _what_?”

“That Karkat’s looking at me now instead of you all the time.”

Wow.  
Wooooooooow. They’ve known each other- what, a day? And they’re already arguing like two friends who want the last piece of cake. The cake being- well.

Sollux fumes. “What give’th you any idea that Karkat even look’th at me at _all_?” he hisses, leaning down to Dave’s level with his hands on his skinny hips.

“I heard you having sex.”  
Oh no.  
“On the couch.”  
Stop.  
“You were really fucking loud.”  
Stop talking.

Sollux looks livid. His horns crackle, and he reaches for the collar of Dave’s shirt, but Karkat is dragging him away and asking about what’s going on, and he’s left empty handed and _angry_.

Neither of them say anything for a moment.

“Nothing,” Sollux breathes in his best “I don’t care” voice, before he turns on his heel and stomps towards his bedroom, slamming the door shut with the click, click, click of his multiple locks.

“What a hormonal teenager,” Dave scoffs to himself, still scowling.

-

Jesus fucking Christ. Karkat looks at Sollux’s locked door and barely resists the urge to kick it down and throttle him. Not in a sexy way, either. Okay, maybe a little bit in a sexy way.

He takes several deep breaths. How in the chaotic hell has this apartment become drama central overnight?

He turns away from Sollux’s door, knowing from experience that it’ll be better to deal with him once he’s cooled the fuck off. They don’t need a repeat of the Big SolKat Fight of five years ago. It was back when Karkat had been dating Terezi, Sollux had come into Karkat’s room while he and Terezi were fucking, grabbed some of Karkat’s weed and slapped him on the ass as he walked back out the door. Karkat completely fucking blew up at him and they both yelled a bunch of awful bullshit they didn’t really mean, and ended up not talking to each other for three weeks. Just, no, not doing that shit again.

“Alright, fuck this, let’s go up to the roof,” he says, already halfway to the door.

Dave follows him. When they get upstairs, Karkat turns and sizes him up.

He’s a skinny fucker, that’s for sure. Fast and agile, though, Karkat remembers from the night before, but once he’s pinned he’s pretty much fucked. Uh, screwed. Uh. Out of luck. Fucking phrasing.

“Alright, first things first, we gotta build up your strength,” he thinks out loud. “I know you’re fast, but you have to be able to kick out of a pin. You can only run and dodge for so long before you get caught. You need more fucking muscle mass if you’re gonna stand a chance out there.”

He grabs a grimy exercise mat from the storage shed.

“I need to get a baseline for how strong you are. Here, get down on this. I’ll pin you, and then you can try and get out of it, that’ll give me an idea of how much work we need to do.”

-

Dave tries not to think about Bro, or Sollux, as he walks up the stairs behind Karkat. He can deal with it later, and honestly, the man is filling out his goddamn slacks _so nicely_ \--

He purses his lips as the view is ripped from him when the other moves to stand opposite. It's blowy up, here, a nice breeze buffeting his hair.

He'd love rooftops, if he didn't have such often, horrible memories.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and raises an eyebrow at “I'll pin you.” He can already feel himself getting excited. Not _just_ in that way, get your head out of the gutter. He teeters from foot to foot.

"Got it." Wait, wait, though, do they need, like, a safeword? Or a way to tap-out?

Dave doesn't have long to think about it, because Karkat is moving towards him and Dave ducks, weaves, but it's eventually inevitable as Karkat grabs his shoulder and trips him over his ankle, and he yelps as he falls to the mat on his back. He rolls fast, trying to get back up, but all he gets is a knee and then a body pressing into his back and keeping him down.

 _Don't get horny. Don't get horny--_  
Dave kicks and struggles and squirms, trying with everything he has to push up despite the weight keeping him down, but it's pointless. He has no idea how to even try and get up, let alone have the strength to do it.

He shifts, taps the mat. Karkat's hips are pressed almost flush with his, and Dave is having a hard time keeping the heat off his cheeks and the horny inside his pants.

"Okay, man--" he wheezes, panting to catch his breath. "We need to do a lot of work."

-

Karkat lets go and stands up, staring at Dave. “Yeah, no fucking shit, we do,” he scoffs. “That was fucking pathetic. Alright, get up.”

He reaches a hand down to help Dave up, without thinking about it. Dave’s hand is warm, and Karkat lets go quickly as soon as he’s standing.

“You ever done weight training before?” he looks at Dave, who shakes his head. “Didn’t think so. Alright, starting from the very fucking beginning, I guess.”

He goes back to the storage shed and grabs a small workout bench and a five-pound dumbbell. Most of the shit in here is Karkat’s, but it’s cheap and shitty enough that nobody’s gonna try to steal it, and he doesn’t really have the space for it in their apartment. It doesn’t seem like that many people really come up to the roof anyway.

“This is what we’re gonna start with,” he says, setting down the bench. He bends over, placing his palm on the seat of the bench, keeping his knees loose and his back flat. He holds the dumbbell in one hand to demonstrate, holding it low to the ground, then lifting it up to his side. “This is called a row. You’re gonna do as many reps of these as you can today.”

He steps back from the bench and hands Dave the dumbbell. Time to get to work.

-

Dave holds onto Karkat's hand probably too long as he gets up, wanting that hand all over him, everywhere, now. He does eventually let it go, though, when Karkat steps away, and he wipes horny sweat from his brow.

Horny sweat?  
No. No, just sweat.

He watches Karkat retrieve the bench and weights, and blinks once, twice behind his shades.

Fuck, the guy has some serious muscle to him. His biceps ripple beneath even his short sleeved shirt, and Dave can see the muscles of his back working, his neck, his thighs where his legs support him, his ass--

He's biting his thumb and hugging an arm around himself, shamelessly checking Karkat out and barely listening as he explains what he's supposed to be doing. He jumps when Karkat hands him the dumbbell, and promptly yelps as it drags him to the ground. Shit, he was _not_ expecting it to be so heavy-- How did Karkat lift that so easy??

"Right, okay, rowing-- Like a boat. Gonna get strong by rowing, uh-- fake rowing--" Dave rambles as he uses two hands to lift the dumbbell up. After a few tests of its weight, he gets a little more familiar with it, and takes to the bench.

How was Karkat doing again?  
He was like, bent over, all ass out...

Dave bends at his hips stiffly, rests one hand on the bench like he'd seen Karkat doing. It's uncomfortable, this stance, and Dave shifts tensely, deciding to just suffer with it as he drops the dumbbell and his hand down, and then lifts it. Once, twice.

He whines.

"Shit, man, this hurts already,” he complains. "Is it break time yet?"

-

Jesus fucking Christ, this kid.

“No, it’s not fucking break time,” Karkat snarls. “Are you actually going to try at all? Or are you planning to just fuck around all day and waste my time? When I agreed to train you out of the *kindness of my own pusher*, that didn’t mean I was giving you an invitation to dick around all day without even attempting to improve, and making me bear witness to your idiotic behavior.”

He shakes his head.

“Your stance is fucking awful too, here, you have to keep your hips flat like this--” Karkat grabs Dave’s hips and adjusts them. He tries not to look at his ass even though it’s *right* there. Nope. Not looking. Being a professional wrestling coach right now and absolutely not ogling his student.

“And you don’t want your shoulder to go that low, keep it level with your back.” Karkat grabs Dave’s arm, adjusting it to the right position.

He stands back. “Ten reps, and then you can switch arms.”

-

"Okay, okay, damn, calm down, I was only joking," Dave grumbles as Karkat snarls at him, despite the way it makes his cheeks flush and his hair stand on end. If only he was snarling something else...

He shakes his head to clear it of any more stupid horny thoughts, but they're right back in the forefront of his mind as Karkat _stands behind him and grabs his hips_.

Boner central, here we come. Toot toot.

Dave stammers through a smartass reply as Karkat shows him how he's supposed to be standing, and grits his teeth, sweating horny bullets. Fuck. He's definitely not thinking about Karkat pushing him down over this bench, reefing his jeans down and fucking him senseless, claws digging into his bare hips--. No.

That'd be gay. Dave isn't gay. He's 100% no homo, and this is a no homo space, just two dudes bein' bros and learning how to do no homo things. Like sports.

Dave frowns, tries to focus on what Karkat is _saying_. Ten reps? Okay.

He keeps his stance like Karkat showed him, and found it a lot easier now to not think about Karkat's dick when his biceps started to burn. He got to ten, and then flashed the other a smug, proud-of-himself grin, and swapped arms.

"Eight, nine, ten-- Booyahm" Dave calls proudly, fighting the urge to throw the fucking weight off of the building. Stupid, heavy, piece a-shit.

His arms feel so light, but so sore, at the same time. He shakes them out and bounces from foot to foot, looking to Karkat expectantly.

"What now, Mr. Miyagi? Can I start kicking ninjas through walls yet?"

-

Karkat watches carefully to make sure Dave’s form is correct. It’s not bad. The kid’s actually doing a decent job following instructions, now that he’s finally gotten him to shut up for five seconds.

The moment Dave’s done with the set, though, he’s back to making idiotic quips. Karkat ignores him, proceeding onto the next exercise.

“Ok, now do twenty squats, holding the weight in between your legs.”

Karkat squats in the position he wants Dave to use, holding his hands where the dumbbell weight would be and doing a few reps himself to demonstrate the motions.

He watches Dave through the set, then instructs him: “Now repeat everything you just did, nine more times. I’m gonna start my laundry, I’ll be back before you’re done though. And no fucking cheating! I’ll know if you did and I’ll make you start all over again,” he threatens.

Downstairs, he tosses his and Dave’s clothes in the laundry, as well as the jizz-stained towels from this morning.

Sollux comes out of his room as he’s putting the soap in.

“Hey,” Karkat says as Sollux walks by. “I don’t know what crawled up your ass this morning, but we gotta talk about this whole new roommate situation. I had an idea. What would you think about Dave--” he nods his head to the upstairs, indicating Dave upstairs, “--moving in with us? I haven’t asked him yet, but I don’t think he’d mind sleeping on the couch, and once I teach him how to fight properly, he might be able to bring in some decent cash to help pay for this shithole. He’s got potential, anyway.”

-

Sollux spends the time he has alone in his room, sulking, mostly. He does some coding, but he can't really focus on it since he's too busy thinking about Karkat.

And Dave.

Fuck, that little worm.

He spend some time on the phone, talking to clients, and potential clients, organising meets to do their--  
Deals. When he does emerge from his room for coffee, though, he's surprised-- and happy, to see Karkat.

He stops in the hall and leans in the laundry doorway, rubbing his face.

Fuuuuuuuck. Of _course_ Karkat would wanna let the rat stay. Said rat probably has some big ol' sad sob story to go with it that pulled at Karkats mushy pusher and convinced him to let him stay. His brows furrow, and he pouts.

If it was up to _him_ , he'd shove Dave out the door on his ass so fast.

But.... Karkat would probably beat himself up about it. He'd probably worry about the little fuck for months.

Damn it.  
At least Karkat's idea is... not half bad. If Dave can start bringing in money, that-- They'd be good.

"Look-- I don't-- Care. I really don't care. If he want'th to cra'th on the couch- fine. A'th long--"  
he points at Karkat with a mean finger, narrowing his eyes to emphasize his point. "A'th he pull'th hi'th weight. One mi'th'ed payment, and I'm taking back our fuck-couch."

He folds his arms again, rolls his shoulders, and sighs. "Don't you have another fight tonight?" he asks. "I have a few clients I have to meet, and you're the only one here with a car. It'd be th'uper convenient if I didn't have to pay you in th'itty head to get to the ring tonight."

-

Karkat nods, relieved to have that issue settled, and glad that Sollux seems to be acting sane again. For the most part, anyway.

“Yeah, I’ve got a fight at ten, I can bring you along. I was gonna order pizza for dinner beforehand too, if you want some.”

He turns back to the laundry and grabs the clean stuff that was already in the dryer, tossing it into a basket. He’ll fold it later, or… something.

“Probably gonna bring Dave along tonight too,” he mentions, “so he can get used to the scene a little more, maybe pick up a few pointers from watching. I hope you two can play nice for half an hour or so without me.”

He’s only half joking. Those had been some serious sparks of… well, he didn’t want to pigeonhole Dave and Sollux into a quadrant after only their first meeting, but his inner romance nerd had been chanting “pitch! pitch! pitch!” at the look in Sol’s eyes.

Heading back upstairs, he finds Dave drenched in sweat, his arms shaking. Alright, probably time to stop for the day. He makes him do a few stretches, then all but shoves him toward the shower to rinse off.


	4. Watch and Learn

_"ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT, WHO'S READY FOR SOME MORE MOTHERFUCKIN' MAYHEM??"_

The crowd roars. Dave shuffles on his feet. The familiar smell of alcohol and weed fills his nose, and yelling and laughing almost send him deaf. Sollux on his left, Guiding him by his shoulder, he would be lost if not for the troll cutting them a path through the chaos of the crowd. He gets Dave to the front, where he can clearly view the mats where the fight will happen.

Sollux nudges the walking loudspeaker, a lanky man who stinks of weed, his hair a literal rats nest, and murmurs to him, pointing to Dave who keeps his eyes tactfully on the wrestling mats, and presses some money into the other trolls hand. He nods, and then slings an arm around Dave.

"Yo, lil man, if anyone gives you any trouble, you just tell 'em that Gamzee'll royally motherfuck up their motherfucking year if they bother you, alright? Nice. Now sit fuckin' tight, enjoy the fuckin show, and don't piss anyone off."

When “Gamzee” draws away, Dave anxiously and frantically wipes off his sleeves where the stoner had touched him, and looks around for Sollux, but he's already fucking gone.

He shuffles on his feet, back and forth on the sidelines, and watches.

_"ALRIGHT GENTLELADIES AND MOTHERFUCKERS, DO WE HAVE A LINEUP FOR Y'ALL ON THIS HERE NIGHT! WE GOT SOME OLD FRIENDS HERE STEPPIN' UP TO TOE THE LINE WITH OUR VERY OWN CHAMPION!"_

Dave feels adrenaline coil in his veins. He stares around, trying to catch Karkat making his way over from the lockers, but can't catch him over the massive throng of people. They'd split up at the car, Sollux and Dave making for the main stage while Karkat left to get ready for the match.

Another troll steps up onto the mats. He's got purple tinted fins instead of ears, a streak of purple hair, built surprisingly bulky for someone who's shedding a silk bathrobe.

_"EVERYONE GIVE A MOTHERFUCKING HAND FOR DUALSCAR!"_

“Dualscar” cracks his knuckles, his neck. Dave swallows, hard, eyes wide. Gamzee is slinging an arm around his neck again.

"Troll on troll matches get motherfuckin' brutal, my little dude, you might wanna take a motherfuckin step backwards."

Dave takes several steps backwards, along with a majority of the crowd. He spots Sollux across the mats, shaking hands with a blonde-haired man with sharp shades. For a moment, Dave panics, thinking that Bro is here, but then the guy turns, and he's laughing at something Sollux has said, and Dave relaxes.

Gamzee is yelling again.

_"AND ANOTHER HAND FOR OUR VERY OWN MOTHERFUCKING LOWBLOOD CHAMPION,"_

Dave stands up on his toes, excited.

_"THE MOTHERFUCKING SON OF THE SIGNLESS!*"_

-

Karkat cracks his neck and shuffles his feet in the ring, standing opposite the seadweller he’s fought several times before.

He takes a moment to try and recall his opponent’s fighting techniques from last time--although it’s been a good year or so since they’ve fought, he remembers that they’re pretty evenly matched. Dualscar’s taller than him, but Karkat’s wider. If Karkat were five years younger, he might be intimidated about stepping into the ring with a purpleblood, but today, with all his experience behind him, he’s just ready to do his fucking job and pound this motherfucker into the concrete for cash.

He glances out into the crowd, eyes searching for Dave. Just to make sure he’s paying attention, for training purposes, of course. His eyes lock onto a pair of stupid shitty shades and he nods briefly at his-- student? Roommate? Whatever the fuck he’s supposed to call Dave now. He realizes he hasn’t actually asked Dave if he wants to live there yet, and makes a mental note to do so when they get a minute alone.

He focuses his attention back in the ring. Gamzee calls the beginning of the match, and Karkat now has no attention for anything besides his opponent.

They circle around each other, and then Karkat gets the first hit in. Dualscar punches him back, and they trade blows for a while. He gets pinned for a moment but kicks out with relative ease. The seadweller’s technique has improved since last time they fought, but so has Karkat’s.

Karkat ends up losing the first match, but winning the second two for an overall victory. He’s panting and sweating by the end, his muscles sore from exerting them during the last few pins.

Lifting his arm up, Gamzee yells, “*GIVE IT UP FOR THE WINNER OF TONIGHT’S MATCH, THE KNIGHT OF MOTHERFUCKING BLOOD*!”

The crowd fucking eats it up. Gamzee might be a crazy drugged-out asshole, but Karkat has to admit he’s damn good at this announcer shit. Karkat grimaces at the aches and pains of his body, and heads back to the lockers to change.

-

Dave yells and hollers with the rest of the crowd as the match plays out, roaring Karkat's name and laughing at the adrenaline of it all. There's a female troll beside him with pointed red glasses, who seems high, but she laughs with him and slings her arm around him as they both cheer Karkat on. He learns, later, that her name is Terezi, and that she's blind.

So he has no idea how she can see the match, but he doesn't question it.

When the match is over, Dave is left with such a high of excitement that he feels giddy on his feet. He makes off after Karkat initially, but not before Gamzee grabs his collar.

"Where are you all up n' off too, lil' motherfuck?"

"I'm uh--" Dave stutters. "Just gonna go see Karkat--"

"Uuuhhuuuuhhhh-" Gamzee drawls, before he barks a laugh and lets Dave go, ruffling his hair. "Okay okay, Just had ta' make sure. Sollux'd fry my motherfuckin' ass if I lost his _charge_."

"His what?" Dave asks, but Gamzee just winks, and turns to start collecting bets and debts, and Dave skitters out and down and around people towards the lockers.

"Dude, that was so fucking cool!" Dave cries, shoving into the locker rooms with flushed skin, shaking like a meth head after a missed shot.

He flails his arms like a madman, enunciating the gestures he makes, pretending to mime out the match again. He's grinning. "It was like wpSHHHH, and then he went whAPOW, but you were like bKSHHH--"

After his outburst, he leans against one of the lockers, and stares at Karkat like he's just met his idol, his face hot and wet, hair a mess from Gamzee ruffling it, mouth split in a wide beam.  
"You're so fucking cool, dude."

-

Karkat jumps as the door violently bursts open, but relaxes when he realizes it’s just Dave. He can’t help but be a bit flattered as Dave excitedly describes the match (with idiotic wiggler noises) and calls him cool.

He also can’t help noticing that Dave looks really fucking cute right now. He’s all sweaty and red-faced, his hair’s messed up and all over the place, and he’s actually beaming--Karkat hasn’t seen him smile like this yet. It’s. A lot. He looks like he wants nothing more than to just stare and grin at Karkat all day long, and it’s doing stupid things to his chest.

Karkat gives him a short smile in return. “Thanks, I hope you picked up some knowledge, cause I’m not gonna be going easy on you for training, you know.”

“Actually,” he remembers, “I was gonna mention earlier, but-- what would you think about staying with me and Sollux? As our roommate? We don’t have an extra room, so you’d have to stay on the couch, but the rent would be pretty cheap because of that. We just need someone to help pay the bills, and, you seem like you’re in need of a place to live. What do you say?”

-

Dave can barely breathe. Wait, what? Stay?  
Karkat is inviting him to stay, with him, and--

Holy shit.

As if the night couldn't get better. He looks surprised for a moment, but he shakes his head and laughs breathlessly, and runs his hands through his hair.

Memories of Bro beating his ass on the roof of his old home and parenting him shittily come and then go, and new thoughts of meals with Karkat and Sollux, going out without worry, being independent, having a life, fill his mind and make his eyes water.

"What, you, you're serious? Like, I don't have to sleep in the ditch and ask hobos for their trash food?" he asks, voice cracking once as he steps closer to Karkat as if he means to hug him, or something, but then quickly steps away.

"I could kiss you right now, man," he laughs again, breathless, and nervous, because he's not lying. Karkat is sweet, fucking massive, sweating, shirtless, and just gave him an alternative to dying on the street in the next few days.

Dave isn't _gay_ , no, but he could _definitely_ kiss Karkat right now.

-

Karkat definitely wants to kiss Dave right now.

Hmm. This is probably a bad idea. Kissing his new roommate, who he barely knows, and who definitely has some serious emotional shit going on, judging by his nightmare last night and the way he looks like he’s about to fucking cry right now?

He looks Dave up and down, seeing the way his lips part, admiring his lithe form, thinking about how tight he probably is, wondering if he’s ever even been with a guy before.

Yeah, kissing him is a bad idea, and Karkat’s going to do it anyway.

He pushes Dave up against a locker, slowly, giving him plenty of time to run away if he wants to. Karkat fucking towers over him, jesus. He leans down, pausing just a hair’s breadth away from meeting Dave’s lips. He wants Dave to meet him partway if he wants to do this at all.

-

Dave freezes. Initially, when Karkat's backs him up against a wall, he has no fucking idea what to do. He's never had anyone do this, he's never had sex, and yet here he is like some promiscuous little bird, so fucking ready to be kissing a big sweaty man in a locker room.

Hell. Fucking. Yeah.

Telling himself over and over that it's just the adrenaline, he's not _actually_ excited to be kissing a guy, Dave grabs for Karkat's shoulders. His fingers slip over sweaty grey skin, so he loops his arms up around his neck and tries to think about all the shit he's seen in movies about kissing and all the times he practiced on a mirror and his pillow while masturbating,

And then he lunges forward with his mouth and locks lips with Karkat like he's finally breathing air for the first real time. He doesn't even _try_ to move away, doesn't want to, rather, his body reacting for him, keening into Karkat's touch, head tipping up to meet his mouth.

He's so _big_... Dave has to reach his arms around him, has to stand on his toes to properly kiss him-- And he's never been so excited and horny and _ready_ for anything in his _life._

-

Karkat’s surprised by Dave’s enthusiasm as he lunges forward, meeting him in a breathless kiss. Karkat stuffs his tongue into Dave’ mouth, tasting him eagerly, heat flaring in his gut. Fuck, he wants him. How did he not realize until this moment just exactly how badly he wants this kid?

With Dave’s arms around his neck, Karkat bends down and grabs his thighs, easily hoisting him up and pushing him against the wall, licking hotly into his mouth. Dave’s legs curl tightly around his waist, and Karkat grinds into him, feeling them both hard. He moans into the kiss, letting his hands find Dave’s ass, grabbing a handful of cheek. Dave’s pretty skinny but he’s got a surprisingly nice amount of booty on him.

“Hff- hey,” he breathes. “You good?”

Dave seems to be into it, but Karkat wants to make sure, he did kind of just corner the guy and start groping his ass after one kiss.

-

Dave is gone from the moment Karkat has his hands on him. He groans lowly into the kiss at the intrusion of Karkat's tongue, gasps when he lifts him up, whines and squirms and grabs and arches--

Every inch of him is screaming, chanting, _“Yes, yes, yes, more, more, more,”_ and he can't find a reason to say no, even though he only looks for about two seconds.

He can't believe this is happening. In a good way, of course, he's so excited, horny, and he's wanted this since he fucking met the guy.

Dave's cock jumps in the confines of his jeans when Karkat grinds and moans into him, and he follows his lead with an added whimper, bucking his groin forward with his legs tangled around Karkat's waist.

God. Where Dave can feel Karkat's cock--or, bulge, whatever trolls have--it’s _writhing_. Its squirming and moving and thrashing and holy fucking shit, its _big_.

Dave wants it.

Inside of him. Right the fuck now. No homo, though.

"Yeah--" Dave gasps, when the troll asks him how he is, giving a weak mewl as he rocks his hips forward to Karkat, arching off of the locker wall, face burning red as Karkat gropes him.

He's not opposed to it, though.

" _Oh_ , so good, fuck, _fuck_..." he huffs, shaking.

-

Jesus, Dave is _trembling_ and _mewling_ underneath him. It’s almost too much, too fucking hot, Karkat feels like he’s about to combust. He sets Dave back down for a moment and tears off his jeans, accidentally ripping a huge hole in them with his claws. Oops. Fuck, oh well, Dave can borrow Karkat’s pants or something. He can’t be assed to think about that right now.

Tossing Dave’s ruined pants aside, he shucks off his own. He lifts Dave up again, letting his bulge tangle around Dave’s cock. Dave’s so much smaller than him, and it’s not that he’s undersized but more that Karkat’s just so fucking huge. His bulge easily wraps around Dave’s cock with room to spare. He lets it rub up against Dave’s balls, pushing up against his wastechute--he’s been with human guys before, he knows the drill, and apparently, so does his bulge.

He kisses Dave deeply as the tip of his bulge plays with Dave’s asshole, gently rubbing the outside to start, coating it in Karkat’s bright red genmat.

“You’re so fucking hot, Dave,” he growls, breaking away from the kiss to get a better look at him. Dave’s flushed, shaking, his cock is leaking, he looks so goddamn _pretty_ Karkat can barely stand it. He wants to _ruin_ him.

-

Oh fuck. _Oh, fuck._

It’s a lot to process all at once, but, if he's being honest, his whole _life_ has been a lot to process all at once. He's confused when Karkat sets him down, at first, but then he's ripping off his jeans and ohoho, oh _yes_. He doesn't give two shits about those jeans, much more interested in what's going on with his dick and Karkat's massive, writhing _tentacle_ , and Dave _knew_ he was into that specific hentai for a reason.

He moans like a pornstar when that slick ass-destroyer tangles with his wet, slick cock, and whines. It feels so fucking good, nothing like masturbating, not even like anything he's ever dreamed of before. He shakes as his thighs wind tight around Karkat's waist to support himself, and he lets loose another lewd moan as it slips around his genitals, wet and slick and fucking _big_.

He has no idea if he can take this. He's never done anal before, let alone with a man the size of fucking Karkat, but he wants to. Fuck, he wants to, and he _will_.

He wonders if he should tell Karkat that he's never done this before.

Eh. Formalities. It doesn't matter, he supposes, so he keeps his mouth shut, and unless Karkat asks, he won't bother saying anything. The guy is being so gentle that Dave isn't worried at all-- In fact, he's never felt safer, here in his arms, about to take his monster fuckrod-- Well. Not a rod, but--

"Fuck, god, _please_ \--" Dave gasps as soon as the kiss breaks, eyes rolling behind his shades, face wet with sweat as he tangles his hands in Karkat's hair, running through his locks, teasing his fingers over his horns and hornbeds gently. He moans again and rocks down against the wet probe between his cheeks, and licks his puffy lips, shaking.

"God, just _fuck_ me, Karkat."

-

Wow. Karkat does not want to admit, even to himself, how hot it is to hear those words. Instead, he carefully untangles his bulge from Dave’s cock, making sure not to claw him--humans are so fucking fragile, what the hell--and feeds the tip of it into his hole.

With some difficulty, he forces himself to go slowly, an inch at a time, giving Dave time to adjust to the stretch. If he’d known he was going to be fucking a human tonight, he would have trimmed his claws to stretch him open easier, but… honestly, this is fine. More than fine, it feels fucking fantastic. Dave is so unbelievably tight and hot, and Karkat can’t stop kissing him as he enters him at an agonizingly slow pace.

He wants to touch Dave’s cock, so he shifts his weight, holding him up with only one hand under his ass. He reaches down and strokes his cock with his palm, and suddenly gasps as Dave’s hole clenches and flutters around his bulge. Fuck! He keeps stroking and Dave keeps responding as if he’s pressing the “make Dave’s wastechute do sexy things” button over and over, it’s fucking incredible.

Finally, Karkat’s bulge is about halfway inside, and he thinks that might be about as far as it’s gonna get for now. He doesn’t want to push his luck and hurt Dave or anything. Besides, even just this much feels so good, he’s actually worried he’s gonna blow early. Even though he just fucked Sollux this morning, he’s so hot for this dumbass twink that it’s making him weak in the knees.

He lets go of Dave’s cock so he can hold him up properly with both arms, and lets his bulge thrash inside, brushing against that one spot that human guys seem to go crazy for, dragging his bulge out and in, back and forth inside his hole. He bends down and sucks at Dave’s lower lip, grunting and gasping into his mouth with each thrust. Fuck, he’s not gonna last long with how good this is feeling.

-

Dave gasps sharply, his moan coming out clipped and high, like a dog whimpering for a meal, and he almost sobs with-- relief? gratitude? something, as Karkat guides his bulge into him.

Holy. Shit. Best. Idea. Ever.

He should have run away and found Karkat sooner, holy hell. He squirms and whines, and really, Karkat is just kissing his open mouth at this point, Dave's jaw agape as he gasps for breath and chokes on his moans, little, wet 'ah', sounds escaping him every time Karkat shifts.

And oh god, it's moving. Karkat has shifted to palm his cock, and he can't help the way he bucks into the others calloused hand and tenses, his thighs so tight around Karkat's waist he'd be worried that he was crushing his ribs if he didn't think the man was a fucking god.

"Karkat, Karkat, Karkat, Karkat, Karkat," Dave chants like a broken prayer, arching his back and hissing, settling into a feeble moan as he stretches around Karkats intrusion and shakes.

"O-oh g-god, o-h, f-uck, yea-h, yea-ah, f-uck m-mm-e, Karkat," he whimpers, sloppily returning Karkat's kisses with what energy he has left.

"Karkat, Karkat, Karkat--!"

His bulge is thrashing around inside him, catching Dave's prostate, and he's already so close to coming that the thrusts Karkat is shoving into him send him over the edge so fast and overwhelming that he doesn't even see it coming. He has no time to warn the other before he's screaming, his cock spurting hot ropes of come up over his shirt and onto Karkat's chest, where it drips down their bodies and leaves Dave's cock looking like a very thick, broken fountain.

Toes curled so hard that his nails may as well be digging into the palm of his foot, Dave is seeing stars, gasping and laughing in awe as Karkat fucks through his orgasm, Dave grabbing Karkats horns like they're meant for support, his hole cinching desparately around Karkat, trying to pull him deeper, and Dave can't get e-fucking-nough.

He's never. Ever. Come so hard in his life. And he's spent a lot of time masturbating.

-

If Karkat wasn’t about to spill before, he definitely would be now with Dave chanting and moaning his name over and over, holy shit. His name sounds damn _good_ on this kid’s tongue.

After only a few moments, Dave is screaming and shooting cum all over his chest, and his hole clenches down _tight_ on Karkat’s bulge. Karkat shudders and yells as his own orgasm overtakes him. His bulge thrashes hard, his nook pulses, and he spills his material into Dave’s chute and down his own legs, hearing it splatter wetly all over the already-filthy locker room floor.

He holds Dave tightly as he comes down from his orgasm, panting and thrusting slowly into him still, not wanting to let go of this moment. All too soon, his bulge retracts into his sheath, and he sighs, boneless and exhausted.

Taking a cursory look at Dave, he sees the guy is still shaking breathlessly and grinning at him, and his heart pangs in his chest. He has a sudden urge to pull this kid into his bed and curl up with him all night long. What the fuck? Where did that come from? Karkat makes a face and brushes away his feelings, then sets Dave down on the floor when he’s sure he won’t fall over.

He lifts Dave’s chin up toward him with a finger, and kisses him, a little more softly than he means to.

“Are you all good? I didn’t break your wastechute in half, did I?” he asks, more out of a need to lighten the moment than actual concern. It seems pretty fucking clear to him that Dave enjoyed himself just as much as he did.

-

Fuck, and just like that, it’s all over too soon. Dave’s legs are quaking as Karkat comes, and he gasps. There’s so much, just spilling out and filling him up and god, there Dave goes, almost hard again. Karkat is fucking his cum into Dave’s throbbing hole, and its the hottest thing ever, the wet sounds, the squelching, the way Karkat moans--

He feels so good inside him. He's so big, he's so _hot_ , and there's so much of his come that Dave can hear it spatter in the floor.

Shit, he wants to go again. He wants Karkat to fuck him again already, even as the other sets him down on the ground. He wants to suck Karkats thrashing bulge, wants it down his throat, wants Karkat to suck his dick, wants Karkats sloppy tongue on his ruined hole, wants Karkat, Karkat, _Karkat_.

Dave slumps forward onto Karkats chest and scrabbles to hold himself up, hazy. Goddamn, even his kisses are like heroin, Dave chasing the black-grey lips that catch his mouth and are gone too soon.

"So good, I'm-- yeah, I'm so good."

Dave manages in an uneven tone, groaning breathlessly as he tries to calm himself down before he has a raging boner.

Then, his mind is filled with Karkat's moans, his wet troll-cock fucking into his tight hole, his legs spread around Karkats wide waist, this whole _man_ ruining him--

His thighs quiver, and he swallows hard as his hole cinches around air and his cock jerks.

"Oh, shit. Do you have extra pants?" Dave suddenly asks, face flushed as he stands naked and small and horny, _again, fuck,_ in front of Karkat.

-

Dave’s having to hang onto him to stay upright, and Karkat’s chest swells with pride that he was able to wreck him so thoroughly in just a few minutes.

He huffs out a short laugh as he looks at the ruins of Dave’s pants on the ground. “Yeah, I got some sweatpants in here. They’ll be way too big on you, but they should work.”

Rummaging through his duffel bag, he pulls out the sweatpants and hands them over to Dave who’s… already hard again? His cock is sticking up, flushed and slick with Karkat’s red-tinted cum. It’s really fucking hot. His face is red too, and he looks so small and vulnerable all of a sudden. All his douchey fronting is gone, and he looks young and wide-eyed and… it makes something clenchy happen inside Karkat’s chest. Fuck him, but he wants to take care of this dumbass kid.

“Damn, are you ready to go again? Shit.” Karkat puts his hand around the back of Dave’s neck and pulls him up into a kiss.

“Want me to take care of that for you?” he breathes into his ear. He reaches down and gives Dave’s dick a gentle stroke.

-

Dave is a hot, hot mess. He's still quivering, his cock is fucking hard, again, and the idea of wearing any of Karkat's clothes is beyond appealing. He takes the pants as they're given to him, and he offers a sheepish word of thanks.

He's about to put them on, but then Karkat is making a joke about his hard-on, and he goes redder. He doesn't know why he's so flushed about it, seeing as he just banged the guy, but the soft afterglow, the offer of pants, the way he's kissing him now with his hand in the back of his neck--

He just feels so soft and pliant and willing.

Dave moans pornographically into the kiss, his thighs shaking and his just de-virgined knees buckling, and he hooks his arms almost desperately around Karkat's neck, and nods almost frantically. He bucks his hips into Karkat's hand, practically whimpering as he silently begs for Karkat to _“take care of him.”_

"Y-yeah, p-please, shit..." he whispers, shivering at Karkats warm breath on his neck. "God, please..."

-

A rush of heat and wanting overwhelms Karkat as Dave starts begging. He feels like this kid would seriously let him do anything to him right now. It feels… exciting. Powerful. He wants to take care of Dave, just make him feel good, and he feels confident that he can do it.

Dave is shaking and fucking into his fist, arms wrapped around his neck, and Karkat sucks at his throat, licking and kissing. Humans are so vulnerable, their skin is so thin and fragile-- he knows it’s not unusual that Dave’s just letting him have at his exposed neck like this, but part of him still can’t believe it. He sucks hard, wanting to leave a mark. He suddenly has a weird possessive urge to claim him as his own, what the fuck?

He reaches down and brushes his fingers against Dave’s thighs, his asscheeks, touching him all over while he pumps his dick. He wraps his palm around Dave’s balls and rubs at them gently.

“I can tell you’re close already,” he murmurs, feeling his balls tightening in his hand, hearing his breathing turn into little needy whines in his ear. “What do you need?”

-

Dave gasps and groans, arching his back as he holds onto Karkat for dear life, like he'll shake apart if he isn't holding onto him.

He has a moment of confusion. He's not gay. He knows he isn't, Bro used to beat him for even _suggesting_ that maybe he was into men. There's no way he's a homosexual, because they're-- immoral. Bro beat that shit into him on the reg.

His gut twists. Why is he here, then, with a _guy?_

Then the answer hits him. Or-- he thinks it does. He's just lonely and sad, and no woman wants to be with his ratty ass. He's just taking what he can get, which so happens to be a sweaty man in a locker room, who is very very attractive.

That's all.

He's just getting his rocks off.

He moans lewdly and arches his back to press his chest to Karkats, shuddering. Karkat is rubbing him so good, touching him so good, all over, exactly where he wants, and the only sounds around them are Dave's moans and gasps and needy pleas, and Karkat's wet hands on his slick cock.

"Tell me that I'm good-"  
Dave suddenly gasps, when Karkat asks him what he needs. He doesn't know where it comes from, as he tangles his hands in Karkat's hair and moans again, rutting up into his hand and whimpering pitifully as his balls draw up in response to Karkats hands on them.

"T-Tel- Tell m-me- Tell me th-that I'm g-good-"  
He gasps as he teeters on the edge of orgasm, clinging to Karkat.

_"Please."_

-

 _Tell me that I’m good,_ Dave is begging and holding onto him for dear life. Okay, first of all, _hot_. How is everything about Dave doing it for him this much? Yeah, Karkat can sure as fuck tell him he’s good. He’s great, he’s perfect, he’s everything Karkat never knew he wanted.

“You’re good, Dave,” he says, punctuating his words with kisses all over Dave’s neck and face and lips. “So good-- so perfect, you’re doing so well, Dave. Being such a good boy just for me--”

He holds Dave tightly as he works him through his second orgasm, feeling him shudder against him, his moans vibrating through Karkat’s chest, cum splattering between the both of them.

Then he feels a rumbling, protective purr start up in his thorax. Shit.

It’s bad enough when he does this for Sollux, purring at him all the time as if they’re pale or red, despite them not being in any quadrant at all. But at least he and Sol have an agreement about it; Sollux purrs back at him all the time, for fuck’s sake, he’s as depraved as Karkat is about it. It’s kind of taboo, but it works for them.

Dave, though--Dave has no idea what this means. Doesn’t know how fucked up it is that Karkat’s just getting his _feelings_ all over him without them even being in a quadrant.

Fuck. Usually when he hooks up with humans he doesn’t have this problem. He can stay detached, keep his feelings out of it. But apparently Dave is shaking up his life in more ways than one.

Karkat reluctantly steps back and wipes himself off with his towel, then hands it to Dave. He tugs his pants back on and slings his bag over his shoulder. He turns, and Dave’s looking up at him, and he can’t help it, he leans down to give him one more kiss.

-

Dave can barely breathe as Karkat tells him what he wants to hear. Bro certainly never told him he was enough, that he was cool, or good, or anything.

He was never, ever good enough for Bro.

But this stranger? This-- guy?

Shit. Shit. He doesn't have words for the pleasure that overwhelms him and turns his vision white as Karkat kisses and croons to him, and it's so careful and sweet that Dave almost wants to cry as he rocks his hips desperately into Karkat’s hand, toes curling as he rides out his next orgasm with loud moans and gasps.

"U-uhh- U-ughn- Ngh!" Dave grunts, shaking as he shoves his cock into Karkat's palm one more time and lets himself shoot, sighing out blissfully as the second post-orgasm haze sets into his bones, and all he wants to do is cuddle and sleep.

When Karkat starts purring, Dave feels a giddy sense of excitement flare in his stomach. He did that, didn't he? He has no idea what the purring means, but it sounds like a sexy, turned-on kinda noise, or a comfortable, attracted-to-this noise, and Dave feels strangely proud of being able to do that to this big, meaty troll.

Dave can still feel Karkat's kisses on his face as he wipes himself free of come with the towel the other hands him. He needs a shower, he still feels dirty, but he doesn't want to rinse the feeling of soft lips on his mouth, on his neck, on his jaw.

He glances at himself in the mirror as he pulls Karkat's way-too-baggy pants up over his skinny hips. There are a few small bruises on his neck, but rather than feel embarrassed, he has this strange urge to put them on display.

His shirt, which he didn't take off, is covered in come, but it's invisible against the white fabric and drying fast even as Dave wipes it off. He'll wear it home, but then it's definitely coming off.

He's waiting.

For what?  
He doesn't know. To go home?  
He watches Karkat, feels his lips suddenly on his again, and he can't help but return it with a gentle sigh of content.

No homo, but he feels right at home here already.


	5. Forget and Have Some Fun

Dirk’s dealer is always asking him to meet up in the weirdest fucking places.

Last week it was at the paintball place. They ended up playing a match and fucking in a bathroom stall afterward. Okay, full disclosure: Sollux _is_ Dirk’s dealer, but he’s also kind of his fuckbuddy. According to the troll, they’re “not ecthactly fluth or pitch but thomewhere in between becauthe you’re a dumbat’h human.”

This week, Sollux asked him to meet up behind the abandoned Wal-mart, which wouldn’t really have been weird except for the fact that there was a troll wrestling match taking place there at the same time. Whatever, Dirk doesn’t give a shit as long as he can get his weed. And he’s not exactly gonna complain about being surrounded by shirtless, buff troll dudes, either.

He greets Sollux by sneaking up behind him and groping his ass, making the troll squawk. After trading Sollux the money for his li’l bag of happy leaves, he decides to stick around to watch the rest of the match. The crowd’s manic energy is pretty contagious, to be honest, and he gets a kick out of watching Sollux scream himself hoarse for the shorter troll in the ring, _“Karkat.”_

After the match, he hangs around, shooting the shit with Sollux and Equius, another troll he meets here, who’s very sweaty despite not having fought in the match. He’s just about to head out for the evening when he sees the winning troll, Karkat, headed over toward them.

“You ready to go, Sol?” Karkat asks. He says something else too, but Dirk doesn’t hear him, because he’s just noticed the little blonde guy trailing behind Karkat like a puppy.

Is that--?

No, there’s no fucking way.

“Dave??” he blurts out before he can stop himself.

-

Sollux is really hoping Karkat is down to drive when he finally meanders back over from the locker rooms, because he's currently so high that the moon looks a lot like a single, big, shiny boob. He pays no attention to how gross Dave looks or, apparently, feels, as he trails behind Karkat, who's asking if he's ready to go.

"Yeah, yeah, ready to go," Sollux murmurs, puffing the rest of his blunt before he stomps it out under his heel.

Dave suddenly Isn't walking anymore. Sollux doesn't notice this at first, at least not until Karkat and Dirk have both started staring. Jegus, what is it with everyone and this fucking twink?

“Dave??” Dirk says, and as soon as the words are out of his mouth, Dave is dumbfounded.

How does he know his name?

Standing in Karkat's sweatpants, he fists the hem of his shirt in his hands.

He doesn't know this guy, he doesn't, so why does he seem so... familiar?

The face. The glasses. The jawline, the hair—

Dave blanks.

_'Where's Dirk gone, Bro?'_

_'Who is Dirk, Dave? There is nobody named Dirk.'_

_'Dirk! Who has spiky hair like yours.'_

_'I don't know what you're talking about. Is this another one of your hallucinations?'_

_'I'm not hallucinating! Im five and a half, and Doctor Mary says that five year olds don't-'_

_'Dave. There is nobody named Dirk that ever was, or will be again, in this house. Now shut the fuck up and eat your fucking dinner.'_

When he snaps back to reality, He's shaking. Dave runs his hands through his hair and pulls at it violently, eyes wide behind his shades as he stares at Dirk.

"I knew it," he whispers in a mumble as more and more memories, good and bad, buffet his head like wind catching loose fabric. Dirk, tucking him into bed. Dirk, stealing extra food from the kitchen. Dirk, reading him stories.

Dirk, protecting him from Bro.

Dirk, Dirk, Dirk, Dirk,-

"I knew I wasn't fucking crazy."

-

“Holy shit,” Dirk says stupidly. It’s really Dave. His baby brother, who he hasn’t seen in fourteen fucking years.

Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. He hasn’t seen him _in person_ in that long. But he’s been able to keep up with Dave’s social media through a fake account he made years ago.

See, when Dirk was sixteen, his older Bro--his and Dave’s guardian--found out Dirk was gay. Which was a problem, to put it lightly.

Bro had always forced him to strife frequently while growing up, all under the guise of some weird bullshit “training.” But after he found out... when they went up to the roof that time, Bro didn’t hold back. He beat the everloving shit out of Dirk, and then threw him out of the house, telling him he was on his own.

Cut up and bruised, with a broken arm, Dirk begged and pleaded to be allowed to stay. He was terrified that Dave, only five years old at the time, wouldn’t survive without him there to care for and feed him. Bro sneered at him and said he could take care of raising a child better than Dirk could. He threatened that if Dirk came back, or called the cops or CPS or anything, he would hurt Dave in retaliation.

Dirk knew he meant it. So, as much as it killed him to do it, he knew the safest option for Dave was for him to walk away forever.

It had been a lifeline for him, being able to check in on Dave through the frequent selfies he posted online. The past week, though, Dave hadn’t made any new posts or commented on anything, and there were a few messages from his friends on his timeline asking where he was. Dirk had flipped the fuck out about it, but what could he do?

He’s filled with a mixture of relief and shock to see him tonight, at a troll wrestling match, hanging out with his drug dealer’s roommate.

What the fuck.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Dave?” Dirk asks, spilling his thoughts without thinking, without considering how Dave might not even know who he is. “I’m glad you’re okay, but-- shit, you look like hell, dude. Why are you here? Where’s Bro?”

-

_'You're insane.'_

_'There is nobody called Dirk.'_

_'You're imagining things.'_

_'You're crazy.'_

_'You're crazy.'_

"I knew I wasn't fucking crazy," Dave repeats in a whisper as he stares at Dirk, matching up their similarities. Bleach blonde hair, Pale skin, shades, lithe build, an intense fear of _him._

Dave stutters, unable to find words now as he stares at his brother in front of him, his voice lost.

"I-- Y-- Br--" He tries to start, his sentence faltering as billions of questions rise in his throat. He doesn't give a single fuck about any of Dirk's questions, blatantly ignoring them as he wrings his hands in distress.

Where was he?

Why did he leave? How come he didn't take Dave with him? Did he hate Dave? No, He remembers Dirk taking care of him, _good_ care of him, so why-

"Where were you?" Dave suddenly demands, voice cracking as he takes a step forward. Anger bubbles in his stomach like acid, and he suddenly wants to throw up. If Dirk did exist, if he was around, why did he leave? Where did he go? Why did he abandon Dave? Tears threaten to spill from his eyes, but he fights them back as he strides towards his brother and shoves him by the chest, hard.

"Where the _fuck_ were you?"

-

Dirk wants nothing more than to sit Dave down and grill him with a million questions about his life for the past fourteen years. He wants to check him all over to make sure he’s healthy, tend to any bruises or scars he has, cook him some food, feed him vitamins, take care of him.

He holds back, though, because Dave’s standing there stuttering, trying to get something out. He wants to hear what it is.

Then all of a sudden Dave’s shoving him and cursing at him. _‘Where the fuck were you?’_

Oh, right. That.

Jesus fuck, how does he explain abandoning his brother with that-- monster they called Bro. Even if he did have a good reason, he sure as fuck doesn’t deserve Dave’s forgiveness. But he guesses he owes Dave an explanation.

“Shit, you’re right. Sorry,” he says. “I, uh. Fuck. This is gonna take a minute to explain. Wasn’t expecting to do this tonight. Or, uh, _ever_ , actually.”

He takes a breath.

“I left because Bro threw me out. He hacked my phone one day and read all my texts to a guy I was seein’, figured out I wasn’t the straight manly man he’d always told me I had to be. Anyway, he flipped off the fuckin’ handle and told me I had to leave, for good. I wanted to stay, Dave, I fuckin’ swear,” He hates how emotionless his voice _still_ sounds, after all these years away from Bro. He hopes Dave can tell he means it, anyway. “I was so worried about you. But he said he’d hurt you if I tried to stay. I didn’t have a fucking choice. I’m so sorry.”

He stands there helplessly. He wants to wrap Dave up in a hug, but he’s afraid-- What if he fucked up? What if Dave never wants to speak to him again? He can handle that, as long as he knows he’s safe, but still. It would really fucking hurt. To have finally found him, and then to lose him again just as fast.

-

While everything that Dirk says makes sense, none of it serves to quell the anger and the upset that bubbles over in Dave's mind and twists his stomach into knots. His veins are on fire, his head is pounding, and all he can think about is how Dirk left him.

"You _left_ me there." Dave accuses in a shaking tone, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. He takes a shaking breath and moves his hands to his hair, running his fingers through his light coloured strands.

"I'm only here because _I_ ran away. Do you have any idea what- What I- what he-"

Dave chokes. His voice catches and his throat burns, his chest, where his still-fresh injury sits across his heart aches.

"You could have taken me with you!" Dave yells, surging to shove Dirk away again. Tears spill down his cheeks, and even as Dirk stumbles, Dave fists his hands in the others shirt and pulls him back again, glaring up into his shades.

"Years, Dirk! He beat me for years! Told me I was mad, told me I'd never live up to be anything, and you _let him_!" Dave almost screams, his voice pitching with emotion as his eyes leak hot tears and his chest aches with the effort of breathing.

Dave pushes Dirk away again and turns his back, clapping a hand over his mouth and an arm around his stomach as he gags on vomit and muffles his sob, shaking. He shrinks, crouching, and hugs himself, pretty sure his chest is bleeding again with all the exertion of his movement and gasping.

"You could have taken me away, you should have--" Dave croaks, bowing his head as he refuses to look up, not at Karkat, standing by, not over at Sollux, who is looking on with a rather perturbed look, not at Dirk.

"I was so alone, and it's your fault."

-

Dirk winces as Dave throws accusing barbs at him, one after another. It’s not that he didn’t expect this reaction, but he’s still shocked by how much it hurts.

Then Dave says something that chills him.

_He beat me._

_For years._

“He-- what?! He beat you? That wasn’t-- that wasn’t supposed to happen--” he stumbles on his words, shock and confusion running through his veins. “He said he wouldn’t, as long as I left…”

He trails off, then lets out an anguished, furious shout. “Fuck!!! _Fucking_ shit, Dave. I’m so fuckin’ stupid, why did I believe him?”

Crouching down next to Dave on the pavement, he touches him lightly on the shoulder. “Dave. I’m so goddamn sorry. I thought I was keepin’ you safe… I should have done something else, should have taken you with me, or-- something. I just, I had nowhere to _go_ , and I was terrified he’d hunt us down and kill us both. I really thought you’d be safer off with him.”

Guilt and self loathing threaten to overwhelm him, and he closes his eyes.

“I kept an eye on you all these years, you know,” he says quietly. “As well as I could, anyway. I knew he posted footage of us on that shitty puppet site of his, sometimes, so I bought a subscription, when I could afford it, watched his cams to make sure you were alive. And then you finally made your own social media accounts when you were twelve, so I could keep tabs on you that way instead. I only didn’t contact you because you seemed healthy and safe enough, and I didn’t want to fuck that up for you. If I’d known what he was doing to you, all those years, I would have come back for you, Dave. Please.”

He doesn’t know what he’s pleading for--for Dave to believe him, maybe. For forgiveness. For another chance at the childhood they didn’t get to have, because of the abuser who raised them both.

“I’m so sorry.”

-

Dave jumps when Dirk touches him, and curses the fear that still settles in his chest every time he isn't prepared for someone's hands on him. He takes a shaking breath, and wipes his eyes, and then stiffly gets to his feet, still refusing to meet Dirk's eyes.

He didn't know? How could he have not known? Bro was a shit fucking liar, and if he had beaten Dirk, how could Dirk have not expected him to do the same to Dave after he left?

"I need to think,” Dave whispers, rubbing his face. He retreats to Karkat and keeps his head down, playing with the hem of his shirt, and coughs. "Can we go?"

Sollux looks a little torn, but then looks from Dirk to Karkat, to Dave. It's gonna be super awkward if they all have to pile into the back of Karkats car.

He can see the way Dirk wants to be with his brother. The way he aches to not just leave him again, but Sollux also knows that they should probably have some time apart after this.

"I'm gonna go for a drink," Sollux announces loudly, nudging Dirk in the shoulder. "You have a car, right? We can go th'oot th'ome th'it."

-

Dirk wants to protest, to insist that Dave not leave his sight, because what the fuck, what if Bro comes after him right now? Dirk will die before letting him touch Dave ever again. He should never have fucking left, he should have--he doesn’t fucking know, figured _something_ out. This is all his fault, he’s fucking damaged, incapable of taking care of people.

He shakes himself out of his self-flagellating funk for a moment, forcing himself to focus. Dave clearly needs some time alone right now. He’s angry, he’s upset, he’s confused. He just found out he has a brother who he spent years thinking he’d just imagined. Sollux is right, he should get out of here, give Dave some space.

That doesn’t make it any easier to nod his head and say, “Yeah, sure. I could use a drink right about now.”

Pausing for a moment, he throws a lingering gaze at his brother, who’s still not meeting his eyes. “I’ll… talk to you later, Dave,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry. Again.”

He turns and heads to his car, with Sollux following behind him.

-

Sollux clambers into the front passenger seat of Dirk’s little car, struggling only slightly because of his horns and Dirk’s low car roof. He adjusts his loose t-shirt, his torn jeans ripping a little more at the knee as he shifts to comfort in Dirk’s car. He doesn’t say anything yet, rather, waits for the uncomfortable silence to set in, which is probably too late.

“Tho.” He says first, watching Dirk pull out of the Walmart lot and onto the road. “That mu’th’t have been a lot.”

The troll shifts again and purses his lips, pulling his phone out of his back pocket, and licks over his lips as he taps out an address into his maps.

“There’th a few good bar’th around, a club or two depending on if you wanna forget or _forget_ and have th’ome _fun_ ,” he offers a little stiffly, because, shit, he isn’t good at this dumbass comforting shit. He just sells drugs and hacks computers, he doesn’t have a lot of friends, rarely goes out-- Hell, he only pretends to know these clubs and bars for Dirk’s sake.  
Why is he here, again?

-

Dirk doesn’t respond to Sollux’s comment about what just went down. He can barely register all of the events in his mind, he has no idea what he would possibly _say_ about it. He’s just focusing on not crashing the car, right now. His hands may or may not be shaking.

He takes a few deep breaths in and out, a simple yet effective calming technique he’s practiced for years. Gotta have some coping mechanisms when you get panic attacks as frequently as he does.

“Forget and have some fun sounds good to me,” Dirk says.

He’s surprised that he manages to keep his voice level. Someone listening in would have no idea that just five minutes ago he’d run into his long-lost baby brother, and subsequently discovered that the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life--leaving Dave behind--had also backfired massively, and Dave ended up being hurt anyway. Nope, none of that shows in his voice. Emotions, what are those? Inner turmoil and permanent trauma? Dirk’s never heard of them.

“You ever been to Rumors? Should be pretty packed tonight, but I’m friends with one of the bouncers, he’ll let us in. Might even be someone decent DJ’ing tonight.” Dirk glances at Sollux questioningly. “That sound fun enough for you?”

-

Sollux can hear the hurt in Dirk's voice even though he keeps it well hidden. He can hear it because he’s spent a lifetime with Karkat and even longer hiding his _own_ hurt behind a cool facade. When Dirk asks, though, if he's been to 'Rumors', the obvious answer is no.

So, like he does, he says, "Yeah, only on'th'e though." Resting his head on his fist, he places his elbow on the door handle and stares out the front windshield, watching streetlights flash past along with other cars.

When they do get to the club, there's a nasty line that makes Sollux cringe. Thank god for Dirk, though, because he sweet-talks his bouncer friend, and they slip right on into the loud, dim club.

Women dance and people smoke and drink and laugh, and the music is deafening, but at least good, and Sollux bobs his head a little as he follows Dirk through the crowd to the bar. Down a set of two or so steps is a mosh pit of dancers, most of them grinding or kissing, but at least they look like they're enjoying themselves.

Sollux seems mighty out of place. There are a few other trolls, in fact, Sollux spots an old girlfriend, but he looks a little underdressed. At least his bicoloured glasses are a little flashy, and his hair is styled.

"What'th your poi'th'on?" Sollux asks as he pulls out his wallet to order himself something _strong_.

-

Dirk can already feel his asshole unclenching just a bit as he steps into the familiar club atmosphere. He’s at home here, it’s where he spends a majority of his evenings, either with hookups or just by himself. He sees a couple guys he recognizes, several of whom he’s fucked before, but he isn’t trying to get laid tonight, he’s just here to forget. Forget what? Yeah, exactly.

They make their way to the bar, and Sollux offers to buy him a drink.

“Screwdriver, make it a double,” Dirk shouts over the music. It’s his favorite drink, what he always gets; it’s only vodka and orange juice, but it has a badass sounding name. He loves it unironically.

Once he’s got his drink in his hand, he lifts it to his mouth, then remembers to thank Sollux.

“Cheers, dude.”

He clinks their glasses together, then downs the whole thing in one go. The vodka burns in his throat. He immediately orders a second one, and slams it back, too.

Fuck, yeah, he’s feeling good now.

“Wanna go dance?” He raises his eyebrows at Sollux, indicating with his head to the mosh pit.

-

Sollux doesn't get out much, so he's fully prepared to just ask for straight whiskey or straight vodka, since they're the only drinks he knows. So, when Dirk orders a- screwdriver? So smoothly, Sollux jerks a finger at him when the bartender gets to serving them.

"I'll have what he'th having," he calls, the hazy smoke of the patrons smoking weed starting to sink in and make him a little hazy. He grunts at Dirk's cheers, and tries not to seem awkward as he watches Dirk throw his head and the drink back, and then does the same, throat burning a little at the taste.

He's about to order another, scratching the back of his neck, when Dirk asks him to dance. About-- dancing. To dance makes it sound like they're dating, which they're not.

"I don't dan'th'e,” Sollux says dryly, crossing his arms as he glances towards the pit of hot and sweaty dancing people.

Then-- there. Literally right across the bar. An old customer Sollux remembers who is about as much of a fan of him as he is of them.

"You know what--"

Sollux and said old customer lock eyes for about two seconds, and then Sollux is grabbing Dirk's arm and dragging him to lose themselves in the crowd of dancers.

"I dan'th'e now."

-

Dirk shrugs when Sollux refuses to dance, he doesn’t really give a shit what they do, he’s just here to have a good time. But then Sollux changes his mind for some reason and drags Dirk onto the packed dance floor, and fuck yeah, this is _good_.

Sweaty strangers’ bodies bump and grind against him, someone grabs at his ass, he smells spilled beer and cheap cologne. He loves it. The DJ is killing it and the crowd is eating it up. It’s, as the kids say, _“lit.”_

He moves easily through the crowd, letting Sollux pull him by the arm so they don’t lose track of each other. They make their way to the middle of the pit before Sollux stops walking and lets go of his arm. Dirk wastes no time grabbing onto Sollux’s hips from behind, pressing his crotch up against Sollux’s skinny ass.

It’s gratifying to put his hands all over Sol, to grab at his waist, slip a hand into his hair and tug a little, plant a kiss on the back of his neck. Dirk’s confident in one thing, and that’s being able to touch a guy and make him feel good. Human or troll, doesn’t matter, so long as they’re hot and willing.

-

Sollux isn't one for parties and large groups of people, but for whatever reason, it's not so bad when he's with Dirk. Maybe it's just the comfort of knowing he's not alone here, maybe not, but either way, he appreciates not being alone here.

Sollux isn't expecting Dirk to be so forward, but he's not complaining. It even brings a small smirk to his lips when he feels Dirk up behind him, and he humors the human by leaning into him, swaying his hips with the beat, sighing as Dirk grabs his hair and his bulge twitches incits sheath, before Sollux turns and he's grabbing Dirk by the belt loops, tugging him closer and guiding their bodies closer.

They move in tandem with the music, and Sollux loses himself a little. There's a buzz of electricity from the bass speakers, and his horns light up with power. He trills as he grinds himself forward against Dirk and shivers, moving one hand from the other's jeans to slip beneath his shirt, feeling over the skin of his stomach.

"You know where thi'th i'th going," Sollux breathes, leaning down to nip at Dirk's jaw as he drags his claws gently down the humans side. His other hand slips around to grab a handful of Dirk’s skinny ass, holding him unabashedly close to rut slowly against him.

Everyone else has the same idea, it seems. People are grinding and gasping and growling from literally everywhere, and the music is loud, the alcohol buzzes through him, and Sollux feels _powerful_ , here, surrounded by people who are happy to do their own thing, surrounded by music and lights and electricity and _Dirk_.

-

Sollux is _hot_. He moves a little awkwardly at first, but Dirk can tell the moment when he loosens up, and starts grinding back against him in earnest.

Dirk is half-hard already, and then Sollux starts touching his stomach and grabbing his ass and-- yep, that’s a full boner now. They rub up against each other, and Dirk feels like he could just rip their clothes off and fuck him right here, in the middle of the crowd.

He grunts with acknowledgment at Sollux’s breathy, _‘You know where this is going.’_

“Fuck yeah I do. C’mere.”

Grabbing Sollux’s hand, he links their fingers together and pulls him further through the crowd, toward the bathrooms. He slams open a stall door, pushing Sollux against the wall and latching the door behind them. He leans in and kisses the troll, wet and messy and full of teeth. They’re both a little clumsy-drunk, frantic to touch each other. It’s fucking excellent.

He licks and presses his blunt teeth to Sollux’s throat, pressing their hips together and grinding Sollux into the wall. Fuck. These pants have got to go. Or at least, got to be tugged down for easier access to that troll dicc.

Dirk reaches down to unbutton Sollux’s jeans one handed, and leans in close to Sollux’s ear. “Think you can fuck me with that double dick of yours? Or maybe I’ll be the one fucking you tonight...”

-

As soon as Dirk starts dragging him towards the bathroom, Sollux's eyes flare with static excitement, the alcohol pulsing through his veins somehow making him more drunk than it probably should be. Maybe it's all the surrounding weed and noise.

He huffs and grunts and trills into Dirk's mouth, just as eager and sloppy as he is as they bumble into the bathrooms. Someone comes in, but Sollux doesn't care, and apparently, neither does the other patron.

Sollux cranes his neck back for Dirk, and his pointed troll-ear twitches as the human sucks on his thick skin with his pathetic little teeth. He grins, because exposing your throat is a huge no-no for trolls, but Sollux ain't worried about _this_ guy pulling out his esophagus.

He groans lowly when Dirk starts rocking their hips together, and- yep, there it is. He shivers as the both of his bulges drop from his sheath with a healthy dump of slick into his jeans.

"I'm gonna do more than fuck you with them," Sollux chirrs, practically tearing Dirk's jeans off so he can push his hands into the other boxers.

He's still clawed, so he's not going to _actually_ push his finger into this kid's chute, but he _does_ let his nail scratch and sting as he prods and stretches Dirk apart with his hands, letting him do the work of getting the troll's jeans off. He leans over and bites down on Dirk's neck, hard enough to draw a _few_ little drops of blood, but not enough to cause too much discomfort.

"Come on," Sollux breathes against Dirk's skin, eyes lidded and hazy as his double bulges squirm and writhe beneath the surface of his jeans. "Pit'th'e, remember? Be _meaner_. Or are you really just so horny for troll cock that you're losing touch?"

-

Dirk isn’t feeling particularly pitch-- until Sollux bites him and insults him all at once. It’s so hot, just that simple act of dominance, the sting in his shoulder and in his pride. It makes him burn all over with wanting to challenge Sollux. Wanting to fight back.

So he does.

Humans may not have much in the way of teeth and claws, but Dirk can make Sollux fall apart in other ways.

He tugs Sollux’s jeans off roughly, and kneels down on the dirty floor, immediately getting to work sucking his bulges. They’re tangy and he smells like sweat, and Dirk moans. He doesn’t suck them down all the way, even though he can. He wants to edge Sollux right now, make him suffer just a bit. He licks and sucks at the tips of his bulges, letting them squirm helplessly in his fist.

At the same time, he presses a finger inside Sollux’s nook, just crooking it in shallowly and rubbing around softly. Enough to tease and make Sollux want more, but not nearly enough to satisfy him. He stays close to the outside, occasionally letting his finger drift toward the spot inside that he knows is extra sensitive, but then veering away again before giving Sollux the stimulation he surely wants.

He feels Sollux’s juices dripping out the sides of his mouth, down his chin, and he slurps, trying to swallow as much as possible. A lot of it still ends up on the already-filthy floor below them.

Taking his finger back out of the troll’s nook, he unbuttons his own pants and pulls out his dick, jerking himself slowly and moaning over and over in a long continuous sound. He knows the vibrations of his voice make his mouth feel even more intense around a bulge, and the better Dirk feels, the louder he moans. He’s not faking it either, he really fucking loves giving head. He loves the feeling of serving and pleasuring someone, but mostly he just really gets off to having a big ol’ dick in his mouth.

How Bro ever expected him to be straight, he has no idea, because he wouldn’t give up this feeling for anything.

-

"Th'it- Fuck..." Sollux groans, dropping his head back to the wall as Dirk starts to suck him off. He groans, shakes, trying to fuck his hips into Dirk's mouth, but the little shit is holding him, and he stifles a pitiful whine.

When Dirk slips a finger into his nook, Sollux's legs shake, and his jaw drops open with a chirr and another wet moan, and his thighs quiver. He's desperate, horny, trying to fuck into the sensations that are so close but so far, and he grits his teeth when Dirk still refuses to give him what he wants.

"Ffffff- Guh, ah... nn, h- fffnn- ffuck, D-irk, ff- You a- a'th'hole..."

Sollux groans, loud and low, huffing and panting as Dirk buzzes around his bulges, which thrash and writhe and make Sollux whine. It feels good, it feels so good, but it's not enough. He's close, and he looks down to see Dirk jerking himself off, the little whore, which only makes him hotter.

Arching his back off the wall, Sollux fists a hand in Dirk's hair and looks down at him through lidded eyes.

"Y-you b-better- ffffff- You better make m-me c-come, o-or i'm g-onna- aaah... gog... i'll fuck-king... make you _cry_ \--” he stammers between huffs and moans and weak whimpers, bucking his hips into Dirk's mouth as his bulges try to climb down the other’s throat.

He pulls on Dirk’s hair, forcing him to swallow more, and he moans again loud, voice echoing around the room, but he doesn't care, because Dirk's lips stretched around him and his throat vibrating against him is so close to orgasmic that it’s driving Sollux mad.

Something in his nook felt so good, and he wants to stick his own fingers into himself, but his claws won't allow it.

Instead, he lifts a dirty foot and presses it to Dirk's cock, grinding his heel into his balls and rubbing the underside of his shoe against his shaft.

"Make me come," Sollux demands in a huff, growling as his horns spark with power. "Make me come, and I'll _let_ you come."

-

Sollux’s hand in his hair is pulling and grabbing, and it’s kind of pissing Dirk off, but in a hot way. A way that makes him want to wreck Sollux and leave him shaking and fucked-out in this bathroom stall. It also, annoyingly, sends a jolt of heat straight to his dick every time Sollux’s fingers tug at his hair and his claws scrape against his scalp.

 _‘Make me come,’_ says the demanding little fuck. Dirk smirks, as well as he can with two bulges writhing in his mouth, and continues teasing Sollux as if he didn’t hear a word he said. He swirls his fingers around the puffy lips of Sollux’s nook, sucking at his bulges, drinking down his juices.

There’s no way he’s about to make Sollux come, now. _Especially_ since he asked for it. The guy wanted pitch, and he’s fucking _getting_ pitch.

Sollux’s shoe digs into his groin and he winces, grunting at the pain mingling with pleasure. As weirdly kind of hot as this is, it’s actually getting too uncomfortable to be enjoyable. He sucks Sollux in deep for a second, to distract him while he grabs the troll’s ass with both hands and lifts his legs up onto his shoulders. Sollux is so skinny and easy to pick up, and Dirk holds him easily once he’s got him balanced.

He goes back to teasing and licking at his bulges, making sure Sollux stays unsatisfied and squirming.

-

Sollux moans weakly as Dirk continues sucking and teasing and-- _god_. It's driving him insane. Shaking, the skinny troll bucks his hips and makes a pathetic noise as Dirks fingers graze his nook. His bulges writhe and coil and shake and prod into the others mouth as much as Dirk allows them too, and as much as Sollux tries to conjure up intimidating flares of psionics, he finds himself helpless everytime his climax flares close and then disappears.

“Fucking a-sshole--“ he gasps, a pornographic moan escaping his mouth as Dirk takes him down his throat. His bulges coil around each other and thrash, and Sollux chants a soft flurry of ‘yes, yes, yes,’ before it's all gone again and his legs are around Dirk’s face. No more upper hand anymore, goddamnit.

“ahh- Sh, shiit- Ff- fuck y-you- L-let m-me c-come- You f-fucking- aaahhhh-”

Hooking his ankles together behind Dirk’s head, he arches his back off of the wall and moans wantonly, eyes squeezed shut. He’s so close, but so far, and Dirk is doing nothing to help him towards his orgasm, leaving him on the edge with nothing to tip him over.

Sweat soaks into his shirt, and Sollux fists a hand in Dirk’s hair before he lets his other palm slide underneath his shirt to feel over his gold grubscars, grateful for the slight amplification of pleasure as he drags his fingerpads across the sensitive skin. It's still not enough, but it does give Sollux an amount of hope as he pinches himself and spasms inside Dirk’s mouth, his nook cinching around disappointing air.

“I’m gonna f-fuck- fuck-! Dirk, you motherf- f-wuaahhh-ucker-“

-

Dirk keeps sucking at Sollux’s bulges, teasing him meanly. He smiles at Sol’s whiny complaints, knowing it means he’s doing well, kismessitude style.

He laves his tongue over Sollux’s bulges one at a time, suckles at them, tongue kisses them. His fingers dig into Sollux’s thighs and ass as he holds him up, and he gropes and massages at them, worming his fingers down lower, toward Sollux’s nook.

As enjoyable as it is, after a while his own cock is aching painfully in his pants and it becomes too much to ignore. Reluctantly, he sets Sollux back down on his feet, then flips him around so he’s facing away from Dirk.

He reaches his hand around and lets Sollux’s bulges curl around his fingers, squeezing lightly. Then he removes his hand to lube up his cock. He presses a finger inside Sol’s nook, which is absolutely _dripping_.

“You ready to take me, baby?” he purrs.

-

As much as this is a fucking phoenomenal experience, Sollux can't say he was expecting to be on the recieving end here. He sees himself as a rather dominant figure, but Dirk is really melting him down into a puddle here.

The way he works his mouth over his bulges is electric. Sollux jerks and moans and whines, desperately wanting the human to just _fucking_ take him into his mouth and make him cum properly.

The little _fuck_. Sollux almost straight up wails with want when Dirk lets his fingers slip closer to his nook, but then he's manhandling him into another position and all stimulation is gone. As much as Sollux tries to push Dirk down or around, it's pitiful, what with the sluggish way he doesn't really make that much of an effort. Dirk easily presses him to the dirty wall, and Sollux' horns click on the tiles when he turns his head and snarls.

"You fucking- God, I hate you," the troll manages, squirming and then moaning like a needy whore as Dirk squeezes his excited bulges, which drip and slap against the wall and Sollux's thighs. He can hear the fuck lubing himself, the wet, slick sound of skin and lubricant, and the troll finds himself chirring with excitement, a sound he didn't mean to make.

Dirk asks him if he's ready, but the only reply Sollux gives, hands propping himself up from the wall, is a fuck backwards of his hips and a growl.

"Fuck you."

-

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Dirk says smugly.

He grabs his cock and presses it against Sollux’s hole, fuck it’s so hot and wet, he muffles a groan at the feeling. Steeling himself--because he's _not_ going to cum the instant he enters Sollux, that would be incredibly lame--he pushes inside the wet, tight nook.

Now he does let out a groan, because holy shit, it feels so good. He starts thrusting in and out, finding a rhythm, running his hands over Sollux’s skinny ass, digging his fingers into the gray flesh.

“How do you like that, _sweetie_ ,” he asks mockingly. “You-- hhff-- like feelin’ my dick in your cute little nook? You look so pretty all bent over for me.”

-

Sollux moans a wet noise against the wall as Dirk presses into him, and the stretch of his tight nook around Dirk’s girth is enough to have his knees buckling. His toes curl in his shoes and he shakes, digging his nails into the grout of the wall.

“Fu- _uck_... Th’it- _th’it-_ ” The troll groans out, arching his back, face burning gold across his cheeks and up his split ears. He rolls his hips back once and reaches down to grab his bulges, shuddering as the two tentacles wind around his fingers. He squeezes with the palm of his hand and moans again, cinching around Dirk so hotly that he curses again.

“You’re th’uch an ego-omaniac-” Sollux manages, all in one breath as he fucks his hips back into Dirk’s thrusts again. “ _Oh_ , a-a’th i-if you aren’t ev-ven m-more of a pretty wh-hore when y-you ta-ake me- _ah..- mmh_...”

Sollux reaches back and grabs Dirk’s hip, forcing him as deep as he can go with his hand, and then moans as his walls clamp down. “I-I’m g-onna make you _cry_ when we get h-ome- _god, oh.._ ”

-

Fuck, but Sollux is _tight_ around him. Dirk concentrates on not losing it as he thrusts over and over into his hot little nook.

“Whatever you gotta tell yourself, baby,” Dirk coos, a little breathless.

If he sounds like he’s unraveling at the seams, well, who can blame him really. Sollux is moaning and fucking him back like a whore in heat, giving just as much as he’s getting, and it’s kind of a lot for one guy to handle all by himself. Not that Dirk’s any ordinary guy. He can definitely handle this. He’s definitely not having to focus 90% of his concentration on not hitting early.

“I’m sure you'll make me cry real good later. Almost as good as you're whining and moaning for me right now.”

Yeah, that sounds suitably in control. Good.

He keeps fucking Sollux, praying the troll will cum soon, inching closer and closer to his own inevitable edge with every second.

-

Sollux can barely focus on what Dirk is saying with the way the guy is fucking into him so well, and he can _feel_ his throbbing nook pull tight around him with every delicious drag out of his cock. He arches his back and reaches back to grab Dirk’s hip, digging his claws in and urging him faster, harder, _deeper_.

“Fuck, Fuck, _shit_ , yeah, like _that_ oh, _fuck_ yeah…” He growls, huffing and puffing every breath, bucking back into every one of Dirk’s thrusts, because it feels so good, and holy crap, he’s not going to last-

Sollux reaches with his spare hand to grab his thrashing bulges, propping himself up on the dirty wall with his cheek and chest, and moans out again as he squeezes himself just right, and Dirk fucks into him _just right_ , and it's all over.

Almost _roaring_ , not giving any kind of thought to the other patrons of the club or bathroom, Sollux moans obscenely through his orgasm, hips fucking forward and back to catch every deep roll of Dirk’s hips, body spasming as he gives up his slurry, pailing all over the floor and spurting copious amounts of yellow-gold onto the wall and over his hands.

“Dirk, Dirk, Dirk, _Dirk-_ ” Sollux heaves, his grip on the others hip wavering and shaking as his nook tightens around his cock and _throbs_ , and the troll twitches and groans his appreciation as Dirk fucks him through his high. He still can’t believe that they just pitch fucked in a club bathroom, but now that his head is clearing, he also can’t believe he just _pailed_ in a public club bathroom.  
Ouch. Sorry to whoever has to clean _that_ up.

-

Dirk fucks into Sollux as he pails all over the place, golden genmat absolutely _gushing_ onto the floor, splashing onto Dirk's shoes and soaking through his pants. It's so goddamn hot.

Dirk grunts and doubles over as he thrusts into Sollux one last time, filling him up. It's real goddamn convenient that trolls and humans can't transmit STI's to each other. Means he can fill Sollux up with his cum without any worries at all.

He stays inside Sollux for a moment, catching his breath, but his legs are starting to ache so he pulls out and sets the troll down onto the slurry-soaked floor. He holds onto Sollux to make sure he doesn't slip... not that he cares in particular, but he'd rather not have the troll he just fucked slip and die in a bathroom stall full of both their jizz. It probably wouldn't look so good to the cops.

"Classy, dude," he says to Sollux, indicating the mess. "Let's get the fuck out of here before someone comes in and makes us clean this shit."

He zips his pants back up and waits for Sollux to do the same.

-

Sollux gasps and huffs as Dirk finishes, and he groans, the sticky _hot_ slipping down between his thighs even as his nook throbs to keep it _inside_.

“Fuck you.”

He grunts, shakily dragging his trousers and the like back up. He’s grateful for the other steadying him, because wow, his legs are unsteady. He’s practically buckling as he steps out of the stall with Dirk, and the noise and smell is dizzying again. His horns spark and fizzle with power, and he practically drags Dirk from the club, even though it's _him_ being led. He wants to go home.

Dirk lives out of town, and Sollux is absolutely not risking driving tonight, so they stumble to the bus stop and catch it. Dirk leans on Sollux’s shoulder for the ride, and they watch the lights go by outside, and the cars, and its quiet, a rather sudden change from the hot and heavy sex and the loud and dark club.

“What’th the deal with your brother?” Sollux asks, when the silence gets too loud again. “You two seemed pretty…. tense.”

**Author's Note:**

> Karkat & Dirk: [@AllDaveKat](https://twitter.com/alldavekat)  
> Dave & Sollux: [@Apiaristic](https://twitter.com/Apiaristic)
> 
> Written as a roleplay on the [Strilonde RP Jamz discord server](https://discord.gg/y2b9Eu2) (18+)


End file.
